How to Teach Your Dog to Fetch

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is Nancy Cusick and I am a professional dog trainer at Austin, Texas. You can visit my site at trainmydogs.com. Today we are going to talk to you about how to teach your dogs to play fetch. At least get them interested. This is Bugsy and for the purpose of being out at the park I 'm actually going to show you a stick. We like a cheap date but bring anything you want, tug toys, squeak balls, anything that your dog truly likes playing with would be a great way to start. So to get them in tight we are going to kind of start moving the stick around, letting her try to get it, even allowing her to jump to retrieve it. Good girl, good job. Playing a little tug with it, good girl. Good job. Ready, yes. Tossing it to begin with. Good girl, good job. If she doesn't come towards me I'm not going to try to keep calling her over and over again. I want to make this game really fun to her so usually if a dog isn't interested in a toy I'll start kicking it around and playing with it to get them really into what we are doing. Remember if you see dogs play with other dogs at the park they like to take each other's toys and run from them. When you're at home it is a good idea to play fetch and put your dog's bed right next to you. Dogs love bringing prizes back to their bed. Good job Bugsy, good girl, good girl. Playing a little bit of chase gets Bugsy come back to me instead of me chasing her down Keep this game short and sweet. If you start to see your dog's bored light bulb going off put it away. I also recommend don't leave these things just laying around the house. Either keep them outside or put them up to help make them golden so every time you get it out it's pretty exciting again. Good girl. And this is how you start teaching your dog to play fetch."