How to Teach your Dog or Puppy to Fetch

Teaching your dog or puppy to fetch is more than just a game; it's a fantastic way to provide essential exercise, mental stimulation, and build an incredible bond. If you're ready to enjoy effortless retrieve games with your puppy or dog, this comprehensive guide is for you. We'll break down exactly how to teach your dog to fetch, covering everything from the very first steps to advanced techniques. Plus, we'll highlight common training mistakes to ensure your journey to a perfect fetch is smooth and successful.

Why teach your dog to Fetch/Retrieve?

Many of our best loved breeds were originally developed as retrievers. These include Labradors, Golden Retrievers, many of the spaniel breeds, and as a result, now a lot of the popular crossbreeds.

Their ‘job’ or part of their job, developed and perfected over sometimes hundreds of years, would be to help hunters by bringing back fallen game (on land and sometimes in water) to them.

This instinct to pick up, carry and bring things back to their owners is still very much an inherent part of their breed behaviours today.

For these dogs who naturally retrieve or chase objects, teaching them to play retrieve games and to ‘fetch’ toys and objects is a great way to interact with them, give them a much-needed outlet for their natural behaviours, provide enrichment, and improve the bond between you.

Other breeds can often learn to enjoy bringing dog toys or objects back to you – although for some this is far more about prolonging the chase game by bringing it back to get you to throw it again, than it is about the retrieving. It is just as much fun though!

• Retrieve games can be played in the house, in the garden, or while out and about during daily exercise to brighten up potentially dull walks.
• Games of fetch are something interactive you can do with your dog as part of your play time that you can both enjoy, so it can be a great bonding exercise.
• Retrieve games can be used as part of an alternative to daily walks if for some reason you can’t take your dog out of the garden or you are for some reason temporarily housebound.
• ‘Fetch’ is a starting point for some more advanced tricks or behaviours – and if you go on to compete in obedience, a retrieve is one of the exercises that is tested.
• Teaching a dog to happily give up an object they have brought back to you is a good way to prevent resource guarding.

What equipment is needed to teach your dog to Fetch/Retrieve

Starting to teach your dog to retrieve is best done with your dog’s own toys and as part of regular play and life skills training from the start of your life together.

You need:

• Two identical items/toys that your dog loves, that are soft and easy to pick up, and that they are going to be happy to carry. They also have to be safe in the environment you are training in (no heavy balls around china ornaments!).
• Tasty dog treats that your dog loves.

How to Teach Your Dog to Fetch

There are four parts to this exercise:

1. Chase or locate the item
2. Pick up the item
3. Bring the item back to you
4. Let go of the item

Some dogs are better at some bits of this than others. Herding breeds are usually really good at chasing toys, whereas retrieving breeds are better at picking them up and carrying them back. Terriers love the chase and the picking up but might not be quite so good at letting go of things! Every dog has their own strengths and weaknesses depending on their breed, type and individual personality. Knowing and understanding this, you will be able to encourage your dog more in the bits they find harder than others.

H3: First steps

1. Start by getting your dog interested in the toy by ‘making it come alive’.
2. While you are playing, throw it a very short distance away.
3. Most dogs and puppies will chase the toy and pick it up – and if you own a retrieving breed, they have probably been playing like this since they were very young.
4. As soon as they do, use your voice to encourage them to come back to you – and when they do, swap the toy for a treat and repeat a few times. Stop before your dog gets bored with the game.
5. For dogs who prefer toys to treats, swap the toy they have for the identical one you have (the one you have is always going to be more interesting!).
6. Never chase them and don’t reach out for the toy – or play tuggy with it. This will just encourage them to run away or duck out of reach – or not let go of it. Wait until they bring it to you or else drop it close to you. To start with it doesn’t matter if they don’t bring it all the way back but encourage them to come closer and closer each time.
7. Repeat this a lot when you are playing – so your dog gets into the habit of bringing the toy back to you and leav ing it for you to throw again.

More advanced retrieving

1. Once your dog is happily doing this, you can start to encourage them to come all the way back to you and to drop the item in your hand. This is important if you plan to do competitive obedience, or gundog work. If this is your plan, find a specific training class who can help you.
2. Now that your dog understands retrieve games and can play fetch in the house in a quiet environment, you can start to do it in different places – such as the garden and out on walks.
3. In each new location, start again by getting your dog interested in the toy and playing with it – although you will be competing with distractions now so you may have to work harder!
4. Always start by throwing the toy a short distance. You can build up slowly as your dog’s retrieving skills improve. Some dogs will retrieve from long distances whereas other dogs who may have less confidence may be reluctant to go far away from you. Stay within their comfort zone.

Expert level fetch

1. You can make this harder by introducing different items for your dog to fetch. As your dog gets better at it, you can introduce things of different shapes and sizes.
2. If you do this sitting on the edge of a seat with your legs apart, you can encourage them to come back to you perfectly straight, which would be expected in more formal obedience.
3. A very useful variation on retrieve is that you get someone to hold your dog while you go and hide the toy somewhere before coming back to your dog and then sending them to find it and bring it back. This is less physically demanding as you are not expecting your dog to accelerate quickly, or stop and turn suddenly, but it does encourage your dog to use their nose and their problem-solving abilities to seek out the toy before bringing it back to you. Start by only putting the toy a short way away and in a very obvious place. You can make it harder as your dog learns and understands this game.
4. This method of playing fetch is good for older dogs who love the game but for whom the sudden acceleration, stopping and turning could be painful or cause injury.

Good toys for outdoor retrieving

1. Balls. Everyone thinks of balls as being the ultimate retrieval toy but it is important that the ball you choose is the right size so that it can’t get lodged in your dog’s throat or stuck in their jaws, as this could cause choking or suffocation. Balls should also be soft enough that they are easy to carry and can’t chip teeth.
2. Kongs. These are great toys for playing fetch on a walk as they bounce unpredictably so make the game more fun. They are also easy to clean. Once again, they need to be the right size and be genuine versions that have a hole at both ends.
3. Fake rubber sticks. While you should never throw sticks for dogs, there are fake sticks that you can buy instead. Some even glow in the dark, float or squeak.
4. Toys on ropes. Usually rubber toys on ropes, these are easy to throw and to carry.
5. Soft toys. While these aren’t great for outdoor play as they get wet and muddy, they can be good indoors for novice or reluctant retrievers who don’t like carrying hard or heavy things.

Common Fetch Training Problems

Training "Drop It": When Your Dog Won't Let Go of the Toy

Often this is because in the past someone has chased the dog to get something back from them. It is important to never chase your dog or try to grab them if they are carrying something in their mouth (whether you are playing together and this is something you want them to have, or if it is something they are not supposed to have!). By doing this you will either provoke your dog’s ‘chase me’ play response or else encourage them to run away or even guard the item. Always swap the toy for another identical one – or swap for a really tasty treat.

If you are playing fetch on a walk, do this when there aren’t other dogs around. Other dogs could try and chase or grab your dog’s toy or just inhibit your dog from bringing the toy back or relinquishing it.

How to Get Your Dog to Bring the Toy all the Way Back to You

This often happens if owners have tried to grab to toy or have chased the dog to get an item back. Others just don’t have a retrieving instinct and just want you to throw it again.

If your dog consistently isn’t coming all the way back to you, often running away from them a little bit will encourage them to chase you and so come closer.

Is Too Much Fetch Harmful? Preventing Injury & Over-Arousal

While they can be fun, do not rely on endless retrieve games to try and tire your dog out. All it will do is get your dog fitter so you will have to do more and more with them! It can also cause injury and behaviour problems.

Playing repetitive fetch/retrieve games are not natural for dogs. If you watch dogs hunting for food – or even working as retrieving gundogs – you will see they don’t do a lot of repetitive chasing, stopping, turning and retrieving. Playing endless games of fetch can put a strain on young or old joints and muscles and cause injury.

It is far better that you only throw the toy a few times once your dog is warmed up, before putting it away and getting on with the rest of your walk.

For other dogs who are toy or ball obsessed, it can lead to over-arousal, an inability to settle, and a complete fixation on the toy so they are unable to listen to their owner or engage in other natural behaviours. For these dogs it is far better that you hide a toy somewhere and then send them to find it and then return it to you.

Fetch Items to Avoid: Why Sticks and Stones Are Not for Fetch

Never throw sticks for your dog to fetch – these can cause serious injuries from splinters to impalement. Never throw stones either – as if you can lift it easily, it is too small to be safe, and they can cause injury and chip teeth.

Next steps:

Once your dog can fetch things back to you, you can move on to teaching some cool tricks like getting them to bring you the remote control or other items you might want. Gundogs with their soft mouths are good at doing this without damaging the item they are bringing you.

Teaching your dog to play fetch gives you a fun game that you can use to make walks more engaging, build your relationship through play, and give you a way to use up some canine energy at home, in the garden and when out and about.

Many people don’t see the point of teaching their dog to fetch but nothing will improve the quality of your walks for retrieving breeds more than introducing some fetch games. Once you introduce these games into your walks, they become something you can play together. Your dog gets more exercise which will help keep them fit and healthy, and you both have a lot more fun – which most importantly, this strengthens the bond between you.

FAQs