I submitted about a month ago a thread complaining about how my dog, half lab and half german, would not fetch for me. It used to fetch for my step-kids, wife, or strangers for 3 or 4 times in a row but never for me. That was really frustrating for me, it made feel like I failed at training this dog especially that I am the one who took it upon myself to train that dog. I tought it how to shake hands, jump, walk on a leash go to the "bathroom" upon order, etc, but fetch has always been a pain for me.

Wife and kids left to Illinois to visit family and I was left with the dog for 3 weeks and I decided that it was the best time for me to work on it. After lots of treats, endless frustration, and tons of patience, I got he freakin dog to fetch. She now fetch from short or long distances, catches the ball from the air, and can do it for many many times.

The key to that was "graduality". I first got her to hold the ball in her mouth, and whenever she does that successfully I gave her a treat. That was harder than it sounds since she would drop the ball after like half a second to get her treat. After I got that done, it took me about 3 hours a day over 5 days, I started putting the ball on the floor, then she would pick it up and give me to me to get her treat. Again, that took me a while. But one day , i was on doing my business in the kitchen, she brought the ball to me on her own, I threw it away, and she brought it back I was so happy to see that. It seems like she finally understood what I wanted. I kept my cool and kept throwing the ball over small distances and gradually increasing until she started fetching from long distances.

I am very happy about that right now. The whole process took about 17 days of work, but I finally got it done

That's my dog when she was 2 months old...

thats her when she was about 9 months old

Thanks for reading