Training dog to catch treats

[Cavalier]

I have been working with Tucker the past week or so on catch, but have had little or no success. He refuses to catch more than a inch or two away from his mouth, and rarely lunges for the treat when it bounces off his nose. Do you have any suggestions to speed the training along or do i just have to trow billions of treats at his nose.
I do not let him have the treat when he does not catch it, and have even tried his really tasty treats, but that didn't seem to help.

 

[Jean Cote]

Well it takes time. If he is successful in catching them one inch away, then you should build distance from there. Throw him ten in a row from one inch away, then back it up half an inch.

Then on your next training session try going from one inch, to two inches. And so on for each other training sessions, until you can throw it from a foot away.

The main goal is to get your dog to be successful as more often than not. He will develop his catching skills with time.

 

[Cavalier]

thanks he is now catching up to about 3 feet away, most of the time.

 

[leema]

With Mac, I also found it useful to give warmup arm swings... I don't know why this helped him. So it was, "1... 2... 3... CATCH!" Eventually we were able to drop the hand movement and 123, and now we just say "catch".

 

[milissa]

For one of my dogs, all it took was a little competition --no aggression allowed, of course.
One dog doesn't catch it in the air-- somebody else will get it on the ground! (never the one who's supposed to be catching) This is done on-leash.
You have to make it IMPORTANT for him to catch.