Trainer’s Tip: Create Fetch Rules to Teach Impulse Control
Luckily, there are a lot of ways to reduce your dog’s obsession with fetch. The key is to make some strict rules surrounding fetch and then build up your dog’s impulse control when toys are involved.
Stick to your guns – at least at first. Inconsistent rule making will just confuse your dog. If you occasionally break rules, your dog might just think he has to try harder in order to get what he wants.
The good news? As your dog learns impulse control with fetch, you can slowly start to ease up on many of these rules.
Hide the tennis balls. Keep keep all fetch toys under wraps unless it’s time to play fetch. Your dog will have to learn to entertain himself other ways, breaking the cycle of constant fetch. This will make it much easier to follow the next several steps.
Time your fetch sessions. Set a five-minute timer for rounds of fetch. Use a cue like “last one” before throwing the ball for the last time, and then use a cue like “all done” before tucking the ball into a bag and heading home. This will keep your dog safe from heat and help teach your dog how to calmly end the game. As your dog gets better at this, you can gradually increase the time that you play fetch.
No fetch inside. This rule is really, really important for your sanity – and your floors! Keeping tennis balls locked up will help immensely, but you probably still want to leave out some other toys. If your dog starts giving you squeaky toys or tug toys for fetch, just ignore him. Eventually, he will give up and go do something else.
Only fetch when human initiates. This rule is ultra-important for teaching your dog how to entertain himself in other ways. This might mean stepping over seemingly endless sticks while on walks. It’s ok if your dog carries the stick around, but if he drops it at your feet you have to ignore him.
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Answer by Debbie Jacobs, Holds certification from CPDT-KA and CAP2, author of A Guide To Living With & Training A Fearful Dog and creator of the fearfuldogs.com website
There are certain patterns of behavior that can be found in all canids. One is that they will orient toward something they hear, see, or smell. If they can see it and it moves they chase it, catch it, shake and kill it and then shred and eat it. These are not learned behaviors, they come built in.Advertisement
Your question should more accurately be, why are some dog so hellbent on fetching?
Working dogs were selected in part based on the presence or absence or strength of the behaviors mentioned in the pattern above. Herding dogs orient and look at (eye) and chase. A border collie in the habit of biting and killing is not selected for. Retrievers will grab but are less inclined to shake and eat. We teach them to come back to us. Terriers follow the pattern through to the kill, though Im not sure if handlers let them shred and eat what they catch.
All of these behaviors are self-reinforcing, meaning they make the dog feel good. They dont need to be rewarded for the behavior. If you like playing football, you play football even if you dont get paid to do it. It just feels good to do it. Same is true for dogs. if you have a dog who in their genetic mix happens to be strongly predisposed to chasing and grabbing something, and at some point introduce them to the game of fetch, you can end up with a dog who wants to do it a lot. This level of drive or motivation might have been highly sought after if you were a hunter and didnt want a dog who decided they needed an afternoon nap in the middle of a hunt.
I have a personal theory, and its just that, I have no evidence to back it up other than anecdotal and that is that a dog who has less going on in their life is more likely to become addicted to whatever activity they do have access to, which makes them feel good. So a dog who spends upwards of 15 hours a day doing nothing, living either inside a house or out in a kennel, gets to do something rewarding for any amount of time, they are more likely to become obsessed with the activity. Also, given that the average healthy dog can walk or run for more hours than they usually are given the opportunity for, youre looking at a lot of energy to go toward doing something else, like fetching balls.More questions on
How to know if your dog is obsessed with his ball
Healthy dogs are often motivated to exercise, go for walks, interact with other dogs or people, play with their toys, be around loved ones, among many other things. However, when dogs become obsessed with their ball, it seems that it is the only thing that can bring them joy.
This is what a normal relationship between a dog and his ball should look like:
However, an obsessed dog will constantly demand that you keep throwing the ball at him. They will not show signs of tiredness even if they have exercised for a long time. You may also notice other strange behaviors that you have never seen in your dog before. These include: hyperactivity, tachycardia, excessive barking and crying.