vinetail
New Member
I have an incredibly intelligent Whippet/Jack Russel mix who is a VERY fast learner. The problem is I'm a horrible teacher! My goal is to teach her to pick up her toys and put them away in the basket, and I've broken this trick up into sections. She's a horrible fetcher (must be the whippet side). She will run after the toy, grab it, and dance around you with it. We've been working on fetch and shes getting the hang of it (she drops it at my feet usually). Keep in mind as she's fetching shes also dancing and jumping all the way back to me too.
Then I taught her to pick stuff up. Shes got that down pretty well, my only problem is I can't figure out how to get her to hold on to it! She will pick it up and fling it somewhere, or immediately drop it. I tried holding my hand out and trying to get her to put the toy in my hand, but it wasn't catching on and she was getting frustrated as to why i wasn't treating her when she was picking it up.
Any suggestions on what I can do to get her to hold onto the toy to put it in my hand? or even more important, hang on to it long enough to put it in the basket? (Oh yeah and she doesn't play tug either, it's really hard to get her to play with toys a lot too when I have treats in my pocket).
Everything I look up on how to teach this trick doesn't have any info on what to do if your dog just picks it up and drops it every time!
Then I taught her to pick stuff up. Shes got that down pretty well, my only problem is I can't figure out how to get her to hold on to it! She will pick it up and fling it somewhere, or immediately drop it. I tried holding my hand out and trying to get her to put the toy in my hand, but it wasn't catching on and she was getting frustrated as to why i wasn't treating her when she was picking it up.
Any suggestions on what I can do to get her to hold onto the toy to put it in my hand? or even more important, hang on to it long enough to put it in the basket? (Oh yeah and she doesn't play tug either, it's really hard to get her to play with toys a lot too when I have treats in my pocket).
Everything I look up on how to teach this trick doesn't have any info on what to do if your dog just picks it up and drops it every time!