I hear this comment a lot when I’m out at the park with Bauer, my Golden Retriever throwing him his tennis ball…

“Man, I wish my dog would play fetch… He’ll go get the ball, but he never brings it back”

And when I hear this, I always give the person a courteous laugh, but inside I feel sad for them.  Playing fetch with your dog can play such an important role in their physical and mental health.

And so many people think that their dog’s wont fetch.

But the truth of the matter is that ALL dogs could learn how to play fetch in a matter of days or weeks by just following a principle I call “Motivation Manipulation”.

Motivation Manipulation is about becoming more aware of what is motivating your dog to do the things he does… and to be in tune to those motivating factors at all times.

For example, my dog didn’t know how to play fetch when I first got him either.  I had to work at it.

I would throw the ball to my dog, and then ask him to bring it back, which he never did.

Instead he would go chase after a ball I threw and then wonder what the heck to do with it.  What lots of people do at this stage of training a dog to fetch is go after their dog.

Let’s think about this from the dog’s perspective for a moment.  What motivating factors are making the dog behave the way he was.

1. He WAS motivated to chase the ball, that’s why he went after it.  So in this case it must have been fun to chase.  And I don’t know about you, but get a bunch of dogs together at the park and they love chasing things.  I think it’s just in their DNA.
2. So why didn’t the dog bring the ball back?  Well, what would motivate the dog to bring the ball back.  What part of bringing it back to you is motivating in any way if he’s never brought it back before.
3. And if you decide to go after your dog, be careful… this might actually become a fun game of keep away, and motivate your dog to NEVER come back.

Do you see how lots of motivating factors are keeping your dog from playing fetch appropriately?

So how do you train a dog to fetch an item and be motivated to bring it back?  That’s where the principal of “Motivation Manipulation” comes in.

In this case, we would look at exactly the behaviors we want a dog to do, in this case we want him to chase a ball, fetch it, bring it back to us, and drop it at our feet, right?

Most of us don’t normally have to motivate our dogs to chase the ball, some might, but for 90% of dog owners that isn’t usually the problem… and that part doesn’t need extra motivation.

It’s when the dog fetches the ball we throw that all of a sudden he doesn’t have any motivation to bring it back to you. So… dun, dun, dun (dramatic sounding noise We insert EXTRA motivation here to make up for the lack of motivation.

a.k.a. yummy ass treats!

A good piece of meet is usually strong enough motivation to get any dog to come on back to you.

You’ll probably find that in the beginning you shouldn’t throw the ball to far away, and only make your dog fetch a ball back to you 5 feet or so.  And let him know that if he doesn’t bring the ball back, he doesn’t get a treat.

Continue to refine this process until your dog knows that he actually has to drop the ball directly at your feet or their is NO food reward.

And remember, your dog won’t be perfect when you start, he’ll see you holding the treat and might drop the ball, or only bring it back half way… that’s perfectly fine and normal.

Just make sure you start with easy retrieves at short distances before you work on training your dog to fetch things from a LONG way away.

Don’t want to always have treats on hand? Not a problem.

Remember, I called this ‘Motivation Manipulation’ not just adding motivation.

You see, over time your dog will realize that he LOVES playing fetch, and for many dog’s that love of fetch is stronger then the love of food.  Which means we only have to use food for a short period of time until the dog realizes that if he wants to fetch the ball again (assuming he loves to fetch) he has to bring it back to you.

It’s just that we trick him to bring it back to us in the beginning with food.  And it’s the act of throwing the ball again right after he’s eaten his treat, that then trains the dog to bring it back for another fetch (where fetching becomes it’s OWN reward)

Pretty cool that it works this way huh?

So if your dog doesn’t fetch, head out to the park this week and give this method a try and leave me a comment back on this post of how it worked or if you have any questions.

Happy Fetching!

Chet

Regardless of the size of your dog, it’s critical to take steps in the beginning to prevent dog aggression.  There’s nothing worse than having your dog bite someone.  It’s embarrassing, it’s frightening and it can cause your dog to be taken away from you and lose its life.  Why deal with that kind of angst when the solution is actually quite simple.

There are different types of aggression but many of them stem from the same thing, a lack of socialization and preparedness.

Fear aggression while it can stem from trauma often comes from a dog not knowing how to deal with a situation.  Dominance aggression comes from a dog who is confused about his relationship with the family and preparation aggression comes from a dog that is quite simply not prepared for what life has to offer.

Basic training like sit, stay, and heel are a good foundation to truly protect your dog from aggressive behavior consider undergoing a toddler training regimen.

Jeff Kinsley of SoundAnimals.com says, “Toddler training is where we do behaviors that maybe don’t have a medical or grooming purpose and they may not even seem like they are all that enjoyable for the dog.  However, toddlers especially may be more apt to do them like yanking on the tail, pulling on an ear, pulling on the fur, grabbing on the dog, charging up to the dog which again some adults even will do these things with dogs they don’t know.”

He uses food as a source of pleasure for the animal thus making the dog both accustomed to having hands on them as well as associating the handling with pleasant experiences like cheese or hot dogs.  While it may seem like a good idea to have children in on the training process, with toddler training how you approach it depends largely on the age, size and temperament of your dog.

“If the dog is older,” says Tinsley, “and is objecting to some of these things, you’re definitely going to want to leave the kids out of the process at the beginning until the dog will allow people to do all these things without any objection and that we start slowly back with children.”

Kinsley also recommends making training into a game.  “With younger dogs that are just going through this toddler training process for the first time, I definitely encourage people, especially if they have young kids to play games with the dog.  Simon Says is a great game.  Simon would be one of the adults holding a handful of high value treats, like again chicken or cheese or something.

“They’re Simon and they tell the kid Simon Says pull the dog’s tail.  And when they pull the dog’s tail, the dog gets chicken.  They go through a little process, obviously with the understanding that we’re not going to be hurting the dog and that we’re just going to be getting the dog used to these kinds of behaviors.

Socialization plays an important role in raising calm and non-aggressive dogs.  Whether you have small dogs or larger ones it’s important to expose your dog to a wealth of experiences.  Take them to the park, take them to the city, take them to the dog park, to visit your family.  Take your dog to the dog daycare, let other people walk them, feed them and so on.  Let your dog become accustomed to as many sights, sounds, situations and experiences as possible.

The more prepared they are the less likely they’ll be to attack out of fear, lack of social preparation or even dominance.  Training, toddler training, and basic dog obedience training will go a long way toward raising a well adjusted dog who can handle just about anything.

We want to thank Jeff for that valuable information!

If you have a dog who’s starting to show signs of aggression you’re going to love my most recent interview with Dog Training expert, Jeff Tinsley.

In this interview Jeff and I talk about how to handle dealing with dog’s who get aggressive when certain parts of their body are touched. This should be helpful for people who’s dog’s are showing signs of aggression when going in for Vet checkups where the Vet has to handle the dog.

Plus we also get into what causes different types of aggression and how to solve them.

All you have to do to is right click here to download the audio file to your computer, then just use your favorite mp3 player to listen in. It’s an hour long interview so it might take you a while to download… but be patient, it’s worth waiting for

Enjoy!

Chet Womach

P.S. I’m really making it a priority to deliver some great free information for you, and I’d appreciate it if you’d leave your comments on what you got out of this interview in the comments section of this post… Thanks.