I took the Petsmart puppy class and the method for dropping things that they teach you is to hold a very tiny piece of treat in front of their nose when they're holding the toy. When they drop the toy, you say "drop it" and give the treat at the same time. The idea is that after repeating this process many many times, eventually they'll drop something with the verbal command and also if they see your hand in the "treat" position. Toki will still ignore "drop it" and run like hell if she has something she knows that she shouldn't (like dirty socks, food wrappers, blah blah blah) but this has worked very well for toys.
I also used to just stop playing with Toki (temporarily) if she didn't bring back toys and just teased me by bringing them just out of reach. Since she loves playing fetch with us, she eventually figured out that she needed to bring the toy closer to us if she wanted to play and not be ignored (sometimes I wake up from naps on the couch with toys by my feet or face now lolol).
Another thing is that sometimes I play fetch with 2 toys. Toki will run up to me with her one toy and then when I show the second toy, she'll drop the current one and then I throw the second toy and collect the first one...kind of tag-teaming toys. She kind of just gets into the rhythm of chasing after a toy, bringing it back, dropping it, and running after the second toy.
Just some ideas! We had similar problems with fetch but these methods have helped us out a lot! |