Question by Questionstoask: I need some training tips on helping me train my dog?
I want to train my dog to pick up an item and bring it to me but I don’t know how please help!
Best answer:
Answer by Steve E
Learn free shaping or operant conditioning
Clicker training tons of books on these training methods
Give your answer to this question below!
In order to for a dog to “retrieve” and item it must first enjoy retrieving or be shown how to retrieve. When you train you train in small baby steps, first you teach the basics, then once the dog knows the basics you move on to expanding the trick even further. I wanted my dog to close my door when she came in, so I first had to teach her touch my hand, then touch the door then to jump up at the door so she closed it. Eventually I expanded over time to now I can command her from my bed to close the door. This behavior is no different. If you learn how your dog learns you’ll know how to train your dog to do anything. I’m up to 17 tricks so far.
Get a favorite toy and initiate a game of tug of war, when you initiate tug of war say TAKE IT and when the dog grabs the toy say good take it and offer a treat, keep this up for a few minutes several times a day, you aren’t actually playing a game of tug of war you are just initiating it to get him to take the toy, if he’s reluctant wave it in his face and encourage him to take it. You want to get to the point where all you have to say is TAKE IT and he does – that’s part 1
Part 2 – put the toy on the floor at your feet and tell your dog to take it, see if he picks the toy up, if he does praise really well and give him a treat, put toy on floor ask again. If he simply stares at you, pick toy up and repeat part 1.
Part 3 is playing a game of fetch, initiate toy play and when you get it throw it a few feet away and see if he’ll go and get it if he does encourage him to bring it back to you if he does praise and reward, keep playing until he’s doing this regularly.
It also helps if you give names to the toy and associate the name every time you play such as go fetch froggy or go fetch your ball.
Expand his learning by putting the toy on the couch and asking him to go fetch froggy and see if he’ll go and get it and bring it back.
Once he’s reliable then you can start using different items, but you must associate a name with those items too so he can associate names with objects.
If he gets confused slow down and go back to basics, if he doesn’t get it you might be moving too fast and he needs more time. Sometimes showing the dog what it is you want helps also, this doesn’t mean you get on all fours and you retrieve the item sometimes it’s actually walking him over to the item and telling him to take it.
My mothers dog is great at “Take it” you can give her an object and have her “take it” to someone, my dog did it as a puppy but will not take objects in her mouth anymore unless it’s a toy or a ball.
Good luck
Training a dog is not that easy as it might seem to be at the first glance. If you want to do it properly you need to ask experts about this issue, or learn the the techniques from good a nd relevant books.
Check the resource box for a list of great ebooks related to dog training,
A lot depends on its natural inclination. If the dog naturally picks things up anyway just encourage it to come to you whenever it has something in its mouth. Make a big fuss of it when it does so. The next time as soon as you call it to you also include the command ‘Fetch’ (or whatever you want to use) and as before give it lots of praise. Do that a few times then try actually throwing the item in question and giving the Fetch command.
Training any dog will involve a lot of repetition but be warned the dog with not be the only one trained. You will be trained also! To my knowledge it doesn’t matter how old the dog is it just takes persistance and repetition.