Training Your Dog To Play Fetch

If you own a dog and you love him very much, you may want to take some time to strengthen the relationship between you two. Playing is a great way of doing this. Especially playing fetch.

Some dogs know instinctively how to play fetch. Other dogs need to be taught. Luckily, dog training for playing fetch is a fairly simple process. You need to stick to a few simple guidelines for a couple of weeks. The three simple guidelines are listed below.

1. Your dog needs to pay attention to a ball that you want him to fetch. After all, if he’s not paying attention, he’ll never chase after it. In order to teach your doggy to become interested in a ball, praise him whenever he sniffs it or pays attention to it in any way. The objective is to teach your dog he will get a reward every time he follows the ball.

2. Once your dog has learned to pay attention to the ball, he must learn to pick it up in his mouth. It’s possible that he will do this all by himself. In this case, you simple need to praise him and feed him a dog treat. If he doesn’t pick up the ball on his own initiative, you can make the ball more enticing by smearing some peanut butter on it. Keep this up long enough and your dog will eventually learn to pick up the ball.

3. Now that your dog chases after and then picks up the ball, you need to teach him to let go of the ball. Once your dog has picked up the ball a few feet away from you, you can lure him back with a treat. Once he arrives with the ball still in his mouth, give him the treat. He will likely drop the ball in order to make place for his dog treat. Should your dog lose his interest in dog treats throughout the training, you can use a second ball to entice him to drop one for the other.

Once you have gone through this simple process a few times, you can do some tests to see if your doggy has gotten it. Toss the ball a short distance away and order your dog to fetch it. Keep increasing the distance with every time you toss the ball away. Once he gets it right, praise him and give him a dog treat.

By simply sticking to these guidelines on training your dog to play fetch, he should learn the game in a matter of weeks. As time passes, your dog will start to see what this game is all about. After the game becomes its own reward, you can save yourself a lot of dog treats. You might even use those to train him to play yet another game.

Owning a dog is a great thing. Dogs are loyal pets that will love you unconditionally. It’s definitely worth investing your time and energy to get the two of you closer together. Playing fetch is a great way of doing this. So stick to the training, and before you know it your doggy and you will be having a ball!