Hello... Our lab is nearly 4 years old and fairly recently she has started finding sticks on walks which she then proceeds to carry around with her, preferring them to playing with other dogs. When the time comes for her to be put back on a lead because the walk is over, she then refuses to let go of the stick and basically runs merry rings around us. Of course, every time we go near her she runs away - probably thinking to herself that it's a great game! Eventually, sometimes with the help of her favourite treat (currently a tiny bit of a fig roll she will relinquish the stick. Last weekend, however, not even producing the treat helped. She has taken the fun out of walks currently because my husband and I dread her finding a stick and not giving it up. She loves her walks and loves running after balls thrown from a chuckit. A stick though - well...that seems close to her 2nd love of finding fox poo...! Clearly we are doing something wrong...please help me put the pleasure back in walks again. x
Really like Jo's video above. My dog has a good drop indoors with toys and even stolen items but sticks are a different matter. I know you're not supposed to encourage playing with sticks but I've always done it and never had a problem (conservative estimate of 40000 sticks thrown over lifetime of my last dog!). The only way I could get this dog to drop a stick was to throw another stick (or look like I was going to throw a stick). If he still won't drop then it's game over and he soon gets bored and drops the stick for me to throw as it is more fun for him than carrying it around.
We had a similar problem with Willow she will drop things if I throw a treat on the floor and tell her to find it. I also reinforce the recall by calling her then make her sit and my hand goes to the back of her neck so she gets used to me putting the lead back before she gets the teat. We stopped her from picking sticks up by every time she picks one up she is told to drop and given a treat now she doesn't look for sticks. She used to eat them so we had to stop it.
