Problems Teaching Fetch

[TigerLilly]

Tiger Lilly is well on her way to being a service dog and currently she's learning to pick up objects from the floor.  Funny thing is, she has mastered picking up any object I ask her to that she can grab (and if she can't she grabs the nearest thing she can) but I can't get her to bring it to me.  So I figured I'd teach a basic "fetch" with a favorite toy but no such luck. She also knows "give" and "drop it". When I tell her "get it" she'll do just that but then get over excited and throw it or go into "zoomie mode" which makes it a challenge to get her to hear and learn "bring it".  I call her to me and most of the time she'll come but she never comes with the toy.  Our trainer is trying to help us and I've been researching a little but nothing seems to be working.   I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong.  Any ideas?

[eskieagilitygal]

What distance are you doing this at and is she on or off lead?  Control the environment and work in a small area.  Keep her on long lead if need be and give her a little tug to get her attention on you when you say bring it.  Don't drag her back to you though.  The lead is just to focus her back on you and keep her controlled.    Baby steps. Start close (6" to a foot away) and work out.

[Yukon]

Break it down into itsy bitsy steps and back chain it.  If Tiger Lilly is picking the toy up from the floor, teach her to pick it up from the floor at your feet and hand it to you.  When she fully understands how to do that and you've consistently rewarded her for it, then put the toy a little farther away (6 inches from your feet) and ask her to pick it up and hand it to you.  Then, slowly, ask her to pick it up and hand it to you from farther and farther away.  Don't start tossing the toy until she's consistently picking it up and bringing it to you when you place it gently on the ground several feet away.  Also, is this a really exciting toy?  You could try teaching her to fetch a somewhat more boring toy first (I started with a dumbbell), so she's not as tempted to try to play with it by herself.

I had NO fetch at all with Yukon and was able to clicker train it with a dumbbell using Shirley Chong's method.  I was very pleased and highly recommend it:
http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/retrieve.html

[TigerLilly]

Thank you for the suggestions.  Via combining all the suggestions I've heard we're finally making progress.  I liked the idea of using a boring object but the problem was getting her to hold on to it.  I decided to try one of her rope tugs and that was what finally worked.  I thought she might hold on to it too much and want to play but, as I said, she knows what "drop it" means and she did just that. Keeping her on a leash was a big help.  She'll bring it to me 3/5 times at the moment at a short distance so once we get that up to 5/5 we'll start to increase the distance.  She did this yesterday with something other then the rope tug which means we're really finally getting somewhere.

[eskieagilitygal]

Awesome!!

[Rileysmom]

It sounds like you are making wonderful progress with the fetch command.  I have nothing to add to the great advice everyone has given you about training methods, etc. but just wanted to relate our personal experience teaching a dog who is not a retriever how to fetch.  We tried everything with Kody, our sammie rescue, including those methods mentioned, and he just didn't "get it".  Other people with sammies told us to give up--sammies do not fetch.  They are too independant.  Then one day we took him to the dog park at the lake and brought one of those floating orange plastic balls.  I tossed it out into the water with a fetch command and you would think a bell suddenly went off in his head.  He immediately waded out to get it and actually brought it back to me.  We have been working hard on his technique ever since--occasionally he will get distracted if another dog runs by--but now most of the time he comes and drops it at my feet.  He really loves "the fetch game" and has even started to SWIM after the ball if I throw it farther out into the lake.  It is great exercise for him.

Here is a video of him practicing fetch last summer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKHdiBV14os

[TigerLilly]

He's so cute   The same thing happened with Tiger Lilly the first time she figured it out.  It was like she suddenly realized "oh! that's what you wanted!" but at the same time she looks at me like "but I want to play with it, not give it to you" lol.  Congrats on getting Kody to play fetch, it looks like he has a lot of fun .