[nagdu] Fetch training

[Andrew Webb]

Hi all,

 

I hope people will forgive me if this question is outside the normal scope
of discussion for this list.  But here goes anyway.  Like any dog, my guide
dog needs and benefits from play time, and in that spirit I'd like to work
with him to play fetch, at least a lot better than he presently does.  As I
think is pretty standard for dogs, he's always quite excited to go run down
an object or toy that I throw for him, but getting him to actually return
the item to me and relinquish is another matter; that doesn't come naturally
(even though he's a retriever).  

 

I've read and researched enough to understand what are the usual steps in
training a dog to play fetch properly, but I can't get past the fact that
the process seems to rely pretty heavily on vision.  Most critically, I find
it rather hard to know whether my dog has actually gone to run down the
object that I've thrown, and certainly it's hard for me to know the moment
at which he has picked it up in his mouth.

 

Anyway, I'll bet there are some folks on this list who have found ways of
teaching dogs to play fetch  without the benefit of vision (on the human
end).  If anyone could give me any pointers, I'd be very grateful.

 

Thanks,

Andrew