How to Teach Your Dog to Bring You Things The Right Way

As fun as it can be to see your dog bring you things like their leash or your slippers, and useful to for that matter, but it is most importantly a great chance to challenge and build communication skills between you and your dog. The only things you need to have to train this are common household items, a favorable toy and a whole lot of practice and training.

Prerequisites

Before you attempt to train your dog to bring you something, your dog should first already be very familiar with the ‘leave it’ or ‘drop it’ commands. This will make for much quicker training, also it can work to use treats for training to begin with if you are trouble getting your dog to listen.

What’s the Difference?

Teaching your dog to retrieve something is much different than fetch, mainly because in fetch the dog is after a toy. So asking your dog to retrieve an item for you that likely looks quite boring to them and is definitely not a toy, will be significantly different than teaching fetch. The ideal time to get your dog to pick up a boring, stagnant object is right after that object stops moving.

Training Method

Step 1:

Start by finding and object that will not be too badly damaged by your dog playing with it like a blanket or a towel. This object would normally be uninteresting for your dog, unless you help initiate your dog to play with it.

Step 2:

In order to make the object appear interesting wave it in front of the dog or point at it, attempting to get your dog to play and tug with the item. The goal here is not to teach the dog how to destroy your things but to help get the dog familiar with picking up the object in its mouth.

Step 3:

Stop Playing with item and wait the necessary amount of time it takes for your dog to forget about the object and leaves it alone. Once left alone for at least one minute, place the item back on the floor, well verbally commanding and showing your dog to pick the item up.

Step 4:

Immediately after your dog picks the object up back or run away from your dog in order to get them to chase you which will help ensure the dog brings the object back to you.

Step 5:

The next step is to train your dog to go retrieve the item without having to escort them, this can be challenging so remember to start close to your dog, you may even start closer and then sneak back away so your dog has to retrieve the item further.

 Be More Gentle:

You can train your dog to pick up desired items more gently by using a designated tug of war toy to reward your dog and to be used as an outlet for harder pulling and chomping,  do this by continuing the exercise as mentioned prior. Have both the tug toy and the item you wish your dog to be more delicate with beside you and your dog and tell your dog that the toy is for rough play, and that the item should be handled with caution. Next get your dog to pick up and drop the item, upon success show them the toy and play tug of war for a bit to celebrate, you can also get your dog to drop the item if he’s not by showing him the toy well he has the item in his mouth.