Fetch / Drop

[Itsnotallaboutyoubaby]

Hello everyone,

Hoping you can help. I have a seven month old lab who is very food motivated. She understands sit, paw, bed and lay down.

I’m trying to teach her to ‘drop’ the ball.

When I don’t have any treats she will “fetch” the ball when I throw it but she doesn’t drop it. She wants to play tug of war. The minute I have treats she’s just not interested in the ball at all so I’m finding it hard to reinforce the command drop. When she knows I have treats she literally sits in front of me lol.

Any ideas? Just perseverance I assume?

The trick is two balls - so you get her learning the game that you'll throw as soon as she drops. She drops hers, you throw yours, and repeat. Once she's got the hang of it add "drop" and then you can add dropping into your hand.

That’s it! Thank you so much @Claudia84

I will try that!

I teach drop in two ways. First without food second with.

1. Toy swap but I use tuggy toys. Play with one and have the other in your other hand behind you back. Stop playing with one and let it go still and then bring out the other one and make it animated. As your dog drops the first one say drop as they go to the other toy.

1. This is the magic way and stolen from the amazing Chirag Patel. It is soooo simple it is fantastic. Just have some treats and your dog.

I know at the moment you are saying your dog will not be interested in the toy if you have food but this way teaches the drop command with food but without the toy so works for most dogs.

Literally drop the treats on the floor and as your dog goes to eat it say drop. Do this over and over again. (well with a lab you will need to do it about 10 times and they will get it).

Eventually you can then ask them to drop when they have sometihing in their mouths. They will drop the item and eat the treat.

Remember thought to start without having any toys or items for them to drop.

Good tips here. We did the swap/drop with two of the same type of anything. Recently started using a retrieval roll with a treat tucked in it - pup gets shown the treat before it's tucked inside, roll thrown or hidden, he brings it back, and gets treat. A few tuggy exchanges at first but he QUICKLY got it once he knew there was a sprat about to be handed over

Ddog is fairly good at drop but doesn’t always do it straight away or very near you, how do you get them to bring it straight back to your feet, I praise and treat a very good, quick drop but I will still throw the ball again even if she’s not dropped it exactly when/where I want. She’s 10 months so will she just get it with age?