A Visitor asked the following question on 12/8/2010
I have owned and been around dogs since childhood, and became comfortable training them at a young age. I missed having a dog for a few years because I was in the Army and spent too much time away to give a dog the time he/she would deserve. After getting hurt in Iraq and then diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, I ended my Army career. My border collie has been my savior. She picked me out when I went to a dog rescue event one day, and we've been inseparable ever since. But, although we're friends, there is no confusion over who is in charge. She usually follows my commands quickly and on the first time. Except for one thing:
This dog WILL NOT fetch. She has toys, she sometimes chases them when I throw them, sometimes she even picks them up, but she WILL NOT go get something and bring it to me. I decided a while ago that we she was going to learn to fetch. I've always had dogs that instinctively fetched, so they usually just took some tweaking to get the commands straight. But I was starting from scratch, so I looked up how to teach fetch before I got started. I read that the first step was to get the dog to pick up the ball and hold it in her mouth. Its been a week and we're still on the "pick up the ball" part. At first I thought that I was failing to communicate with her that I wanted her to pick it up. But now I feel that its a battle of wills. She doesn't want to pick up the ball, so I began trying to reward her for just taking the ball when I held it just in front of her, gently encouraging her to take it. She would just look away and move her nose whenever I put the ball in front of it. Mind you, I'm encouraging her in a friendly voice at the time, but using the command "ball" in a somewhat firm voice. She didn't want to take the ball, she didn't want to pick it up from the ground - she just wanted to pick it up occasionally when SHE wanted to play with it. Well, as much as I love her - when it comes to commands, its
|
|
|
|