So, I wanna teach Arnie how to catch things. I always love seeing some high energy dogs like kelpies playing catch with a ball thrown up in hte air and the dog jumps up and grabs it mid air. I love seeing that. I thought I could start teaching that by chucking some food in the air and Arnie would go for it and learn to catch He hasn't. So how do I teach this catch? Hes a lab so he loves eating, but I can throw a treat and it'll bounce off his nose. Hes a silly puppy.
Take a handful of treats and sit down in a chair. Sit your dog up in front of you, close to your knees. You may as well be comfy, it can take a little while. Dog should be pretty firmly focused on you and the treat. You need to have already done some impulse control around food so your dog doesn't break a sit or snatch at the food when you wave it around in front of their nose - if you haven't done this, you need to do it first. Drop a treat into your dog's mouth from just a tiny bit away - hold the treat up, dog looks up, move treat to mouth, drop. Drop the next one from the height of 1in, then 2in, then 3in - providing the dog is actually catching them. If the dog stops catching them, go back a bit. Build it up until you can sit back in your chair and toss the treat. When your dog is reliably catching the treats. Pause, say 'catch' and toss the treat. Repeat until you are sure the dog associates sitting in front of you, looking at you, and waiting for you to throw something, then you throwing it, with the word 'catch'. Then try with an object. But make sure your dog knows what it is supposed to do with the object once it has caught it. So if you want the dog to catch and then give you the toy/ball it's best to train the give first.
This is appallingly bad for canine joints - in my view, anyway. So as above, I have my dog catch things with their bums firmly on the floor.
Some dogs are better at catch than others. It took both of mine a while to understand the game, but I like to play it as a low-energy game when it's hot. They bring me balls and I sit on the floor, throwing the balls into their mouths. It's good for teaching "back up", too, because, once they start to get excited by the ball, they'll automatically back away from it. You just need to capture this and put it on cue. Shadow is rubbish at catching, so I have to be careful with him, or he does ridiculous things. Case in point was yesterday evening. I was working on delivery to hand with a ball. Their reward was a chase of said ball, thrown low across the ground. He chased it, pounced on it, it bounced away from him, hit a bump, bounced into the air, he leapt up to grab it, landed badly and did a roly-poly. My heart was in my mouth. How he doesn't damage himself, I have no idea.
Bailey is also dire at catching....great at chasing and bringing balls back..but treats....I have him sat in front of me and toss a treat, hits his nose and bounces off...his mouth then opens and snaps and the look on his face is priceless! He then sniffs out the treat, wherever it landed and then looks so pleased with how clever he is! Will give the dropping into his mouth a go thank you for the tip
I refuse to encourage high jumping to catch, it has injured dogs when they land funny. Even a ball thrown low along the ground, as I see @snowbunny has recently encountered, can go wrongly. Not to say I don't throw balls, but I do try to reduce risk by not throwing them high. It's funny, Oban can catch a treat just fine if he's sitting and I say CATCH and throw him one, but not if the OH throws one. I'm a pretty crummy thrower too, they go wide, left, right.
I got his full attention. He sits and stares up at the treat, a few inches from his nose. I let go and I just bounces off his face. He then scrambles to go grab it. He's terrible
That is exactly what Ella was like! Very comical but I was also paranoid she was going to hurt herself. The OH spent ages teaching Ella to catch and she can now catch from quite a good distance when sitting. I'd also like her to do it when walking (when I walk with the pram I'd like to toss her a treat every now and then while we're going) but she hasn't managed that one yet so we still get the bounce off the end of the nose
