Tips For Training Your Dog To Fetch

Training your dog to fetch doesn’t have to be too difficult. There are plenty of different things that you can do in order to get your dog to play fetch properly. Below, we will discuss some of the key tips for training your dog.

1. Motivation.

One of the main things that you are going to need to focus on when you are looking to train your dog to fetch would be finding the proper motivation. You want to find something that your dog desires. This could be his or her favorite dog toy or it could be his or her favorite dog treat. You want to have something that is going to provide them with the proper motivation to do a good job.

2. Chase.

You want to teach your dog to chase after the object that you are going to be playing fetch with. You should do this in one of many ways. For one, you could offer your dog treats for playing with the object. You should be rewarding your dog for going after the item that you are trying to teach him or her to fetch. Take the motivation tool that found that works the best in the first tip and then use it to reward your dog for getting it. If you are unable to throw the toy for your dog to chase, there are automatic dog ball launchers and manual ball launchers that can help you to still play fetch.

3. Bringing It Back.

This is one of the hardest parts of teaching your dog to play fetch. You are going to want to get your dog to bring back the object that you are playing fetch with and you will be able to do this in multiple ways. For one, you are going to want to have a motivation tool that you know your dog enjoys for bringing it back, but you also want to give it to your dog for handing it to you. If your dog is not responding well, you could get another toy that your dog likes to play with and show him or her the second toy. You can then throw the toy in another direction and your dog is likely to drop the previous toy. If you are having trouble getting your dog to drop the toy, you will want to teach your dog the drop command. You should practice with the toy that you will be using and consistently reward your dog for adhering to the drop command.

4. Pick Something Your Dog Likes.

You need to make sure that you are using a toy or something that your dog actively wants to play with. Your dog is not going to go fetch something that he or she doesn’t desire. Therefore, you want to start off with a toy that your dog likes. By choosing something that they already have fun playing with, you will be able to avoid dealing with issues of your dog not being interested in the object itself. Therefore, you should go around and see what your dog responds the best with. By doing this, you will have a clear indicator as to what you should be using to begin your training.

5. Have Patience.

You need to have a lot of patience whenever you are looking to teach your dog something. Your dog is going to need constant patience and repetition in order to fully understand what you expect of him/her. If you are expecting your dog to ‘just get it’ within the first 5 minutes of training and you are going to get frustrated with your dog because they aren’t, you will want to avoid training your dog entirely. You need to have the proper amount of patience if you actually want to have a successful training session with your dog.

6. Don’t Overdo It.

You are going to want to keep your training sessions short and concise. You don’t want to train your dog for over 20 minutes because your dog is going to lose interest and it is only going to get increasingly difficult to sustain their attention. Instead, you want to focus on training your dog in short bursts. By focusing on doing short bursts, you will be able to have very effective training sessions and you will be able to keep your dog actively engaged throughout the entire session. One of the biggest mistakes is making the sessions way too long. You should be able to avoid making your sessions too long by keeping them under 20 minutes. That way, you will be able to keep your dog actively engaged throughout and really have successful sessions as a result.

Overall, there is a lot that you should be doing when you are looking to train your dog how to fetch. By following the different tips above, you should be able to successfully teach your dog to fetch properly without much hassle at all.