Hi! My guy will retrieve a ball or a stick perfectly from the water but on land he just chases it then sniffs something and drops the ball. Any tips??
Start in a very low distraction environment, a corridor inside your house is ideal, so the only fun thing is you and the ball (never a stick, massive potential for injuries in the mouth and throat). Then move the game to the garden and very, very gradually into a more distracting environment.
Both of mine do better in water, though they will usually retrieve on land also. Big rewards would help, but we have not been serious enough to really perfect retrieves.
My puppy is 16 weeks in one week. He likes to play with balls and tug toys but does not fetch well. I try to replace one ball with another so he will drop the ball and get the one I throw. He will do it for a while but then will run off with the ball and play with it by himself lol. Im not sure if we will get better at fetch soon or not. i hope so because I need to find a way to tire him besides running with him. We are still working on leash walking, he always bits the leash so this makes it hard. Any ideas on how to teach him to fetch better. Thanks!!!
Lilly is just the same - retrieves at the beach but not in the woodland walk before the beach. At all. We would be as well fetching a ball ourselves. She does retrieve in the garden for a few throws, but not on a walk outside the garden. As Heidrun says, you need to develop the desire for retrieving in different areas. Dogs don't do well at generalising from one place to another. We developed retrieving I guess by learning from another dog - a ball mad dog retrieving was the stimulus to start. But Lilly prefers the chase more than the retrieve. We use a lot of decent quality rewards to encourage retrieves too.
