How to Get Your Dog to Pick Up Things You Want

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Ty Brown, with dogbehavioronline.com. I'm here in Riverton, Utah today, teaching you how to train a dog. The concept of today's discussion is teaching your dog how to pick up things that you want. Now, this could be anything from maybe you dropped your wallet, or maybe you dropped your keys or anything like that. Regardless, you're going to start off the same way. The first thing you need to have is a dog that wants to retrieve objects naturally, a dog that loves to chase, and loves to grab something. If you've got a dog like that, you can teach him how to pick up objects that you want. The first thing you're going to want to do is start off with something that's simple for the dog to pick up. A lot of people will use something like a tennis ball. It's fun for the dog, and it's easy for the dog to pick up. So what you want to do is get your dog interested in the ball, and teach him the concept of of the word fetch; that when you throw something or when you drop something, that he should pick it up. And so, get him interested, and then get him to fetch, and then bring it right, bring him right back in with the long line. Rock, what's this, what's this, fetch. Good boy. Once he gets it, bring it right back in. Good boy. Get the object again, fetch, and every time he gets it you use the long line to bring him right back to ya'. Come on buddy, come on, good boy. Now, with a lot of practice, your dog is going to get the concept that when you drop something you want him to pick it up. You're going to use the word fetch, or get it, or some other word like that and attach that word to the behavior, and soon you can start practicing other objects, until you get the dog to the point where just where the dog, with an object on the ground, fetch, the dog will get it, bring it back, and now you've got a dog that will retrieve objects that you want."