Fetch – Part 2

Teach Your Dog to Retrieve -advanced

I hope you have completed part 1 of this lesson before you progress to this phase. The basics of the retrieve are critical to have in place before moving on to these exercises.

The Basics – lesson 2

The retrieve requires a good degree of drive, which is what you will see in this lesson. Goofy is super excited and even leaking a little (the whining noise) while waiting. When he sees the article that he will need to retrieve.

Your dog must know to hold the item in his mouth calmly. He must also OUT it calmly without a struggle. You will have taught this if you did the work in the previous lesson. It’s critical that you don’t get into a tug of war with the item. When you reach for the item, the dog should begin loosening his grip on it. Be sure that your dog is clear on this. Teach your dog to sit calmly, place the object into his mouth and tell him HOLD. Then move your hands away. Wait a second and bring your hand to the dog’s mouth and say OUT. Then you can add in the step backwards with the BRING command.

Go SLOW and STEADY… this takes time!

Now that your dog is calm add some different things into the repertoire… namely his ability to hold different things in his mouth. Here are some examples:

• A fork
• A pen
• A sock
• A shoe
• A brush

Be creative and think of different things you might want your dog to fetch. Remember, the idea is that the dog does NOT chew the object.