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I need strange advice. :P Princess loves to play fetch, she wants to play 24-7. I wake up with balls in my bed that she's brought me to throw.:rolleyes: However, this girl will not catch the ball. I've been trying to teach her & the ball either goes past her or bounces off her head! DD & I were laughing so hard last night, she ducks & even squints one eye to avoid catching it. Any tips on how to teach this, or is this more of a natural thing that's not exactly...natural for her? |
Will she try to catch a treat or a piece of chicken? I'd work with that to teach the command 'Catch it'. Then try the command with a nerf ball or something soft, so she won't try to avoid it. |
A treat & teaching the command is a great idea. My childhood dogs could always catch & I bet that's because their treats were thrown to them. I always hand feed them to her or put them on in a dish. I have those water balls that absorb the water, they're light so I'll try them, too.:) |
It might be a natural thing. I have no idea how Kaji started to catch, especially since for the first 6 months he showed no interest in playing with the ball at all, or playing in general. Once he started catching, I added a command to it and he is a catching fiend! I think he should try out to be an outfielder for the dodgers because he's just that good. We also have a much bigger plush soccer ball and I'm trying to teach him to hit that with his head like soccer players too. He does it sometimes and gets lots of praise for it, but most of the time he catches it. :rolleyes: I can't seem to teach him soccer is a different sport. |
This is a funny question. I hired a trainer when Cooper was a puppy. She said that catching a ball is a learned thing and needs to be trained. Cooper is now 3 and has gotten really good at it. I taught him by throwing a little stuffed animal or something that's not round and easier to catch. |
Ya know, I'm not entirely sure how Jackson learned. He just started catching it, I'm not even sure when... maybe between 6 months - 1 year. He's like Kaji, he pretty much catches everything I throw at him (toys, balls, food, etc) and he LOVES it! It's so fun for him. I think I would just hold it out, show it to him, get him to focus, and then throw it right at him and he eventually caught on. |
This is interesting. Levi can't catch anything either, but I've never really tried to train him to do it. Our bigger dog seems to just catch things naturally. But Levi...if you toss a treat or toy towards him, he just looks at it until it hits the ground. THEN he gets it. Maybe I'll try to teach him "catch it" like a command. I guess I thought it would be a natural instinct. |
I taught Uni how to catch. I kept tossing Mr Stripes in her face and said "catch it" and she caught on really fast that if she didn't want Mr Stripes hitting her in the face she would catch it. Now she knows the command and will catch anything. We tease her sometimes and tell her to catch something huge or heavy. She gives us this look, like yeah right buddy, I don't think so. |
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Neither of ours were interested in catching at first either. I had to teach them. Now they can't get enough of it. For Ivan, it was a matter of finding the right size and weight ball to throw. The tennis balls, even the extra tiny Kong ones were too hard and heavy. But he loved the little squishy balls with the silly faces at Petco. Iris took longer to learn to catch but the same balls did the trick for her too. First she learned to fetch (which was harder to teach Ivan). Even now, she is much better at catching if I throw it straight at her. Ivan prefers to jump up a bit for a ball thrown underhand. The things we Yorkie lovers do to make our babies happy... |
Well I found these tiny stuffed baby toys I picked up a garage sale. One is a little Tigger, I thought his legs would be easy to catch. It bounced off her a few times & she finally started trying to grab it so I praised like crazy. Then she started catching it! We tried it for about 15 minutes & in that time she ate a whole stick of skim string cheese cut into tiny pieces.:) With more practice I'll try to add her mini Kong balls to make fetch more fun. Thanks everyone, I'm so glad it's a learned thing that some like, & not a "skill" she's missing.;) These yorkies are so dang smart when they want to learn something. |
Hey that's what we did too. Mr Stripes is a little zebra/leopard plushie toy. :D Way to go Princess! |
I am going to have to try this. I'm always looking for new things to teach them. Love the idea,Thanks! |
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