Training Tips to Get Your Dog to Drop It When Playing Fetch

In this Omaha dog training session we worked with a pair of Dachshund mixes, a two-year-old named Ren and a three-year-old Riggs, who needed help to calm down, listen to commands and drop the ball when playing fetch.

After I arrived I chatted with the guardians about their main dog behavior concerns and learned that Ren had a lot of energy and would run throughout the house. We chatted about different ways to help him learn how to calm down and one of the ways he can get his energy needs met is to play fetch. I taught his guardians how to teach him to drop the ball in the video below.

As you can see in the video Ren learned this exercise very quickly! We used dog food as the reward for him to bring the ball back because a higher value treat might have distracted him too much from playing fetch to begin with. Dog food is still rewarding but not so distracting to keep your dog from playing fetch.

By the end of the session the dogs were learning the new rules that we put in place and looking to their guardians for leadership and direction. To keep up with this good behavior you will want to use our Escalating Consequences to disagree with the dogs and use our Petting with a Purpose to reward them for their good behavior. We wrapped up this dog behavior session with their Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.