**Stupid** major achievement

[Mom2Melli]

This is **stupid** but it is a MAJOR achievement. . .

I taught Melli to fetch. Yea, no brainer, huh? This dog will NOT play with a toy. She will not allow others to play with a toy in her presence. She rejects every darned toy I try. Obviously, retrieve is practiced in my school. I boycotted it last time. This time, I went for it!

One of Shay's toy is stuffed train (he is named after a type of locomotive). It came with these little animal heads to velcro on like a Noah's Ark only a train. Those have been in a drawer. Yesterday, I tried ALL kinds of odd things to see what she would fetch since she has rejected every dog toy I try. Cat toy, silk flower, baby rattle, Christmas bow, bean bag, and then I found the little heads. She looked at them with ears up so I went with it. First I put down all three and told her to pick one -- un elefante, una jirafa, o una cebra. She chose the zebra. We rejoiced. I tossed, she brought back after some prompting. And we rejoiced. We did it until she was panting and I was hoarse. She can fetch! Whoopeeeeee!

Should be a no brainer of an achievement, but SUCH an accomplishment.

Feel free to share your dogs' **stupid** major achievements. Gotta be good for a few laughs!

 

[Sharon7]

Ally and Asta's favorite game is not fetch, but chasing a stick that we throw on our walks. Ally likes to run over the stick and kick it with her back legs, then bark on her way by. One day though that stick took a big hop and she actually caught it in the air - I don't know who was more surprised, her or us.... she then trotted over to us with it in her mouth. We gave her TONS of praise, but nope, that was the one and only retrieve!!!!

People laugh at us, watching the dogs chase, but not return the stick.

 

[Justicemom]

Believe it or not a lot of shelties are natural retrievers. Seriously not a lot of lines are.

We can see the ability in the puppies when they are very young. Alot will chase but few pick it up and bring it back naturally. Birch was one of the few in his litter of 7 which is one of the reasons I really liked him, his brother Hickory was the other. Spruce sort of chased and picked up but he was not a natural. Grizz actually was like Spruce as a baby now he is ball playing fool.

When I taught Diva and Ember to retrieve it was like pulling teeth. Ember still doesn't see the point. Diva grew to love it.

 

[dmeyer123]

Pyper used to fetch when she was a puppy. Now if I throw something for either one of my girls, they look at me like...."what, do I look like, a retriever?"

 

[Calliesmom]

Believe it or not a lot of shelties are natural retrievers. Seriously not a lot of lines are.

We can see the ability in the puppies when they are very young. Alot will chase but few pick it up and bring it back naturally. Birch was one of the few in his litter of 7 which is one of the reasons I really liked him, his brother Hickory was the other. Spruce sort of chased and picked up but he was not a natural. Grizz actually was like Spruce as a baby now he is ball playing fool.

When I taught Diva and Ember to retrieve it was like pulling teeth. Ember still doesn't see the point. Diva grew to love it.

Destin is a natural- he brought me a toy not too long after he came home. we played some tug with it and then I threw it and he brought it right back. such a good puppy

 

[Jess041]

Destin is a natural- he brought me a toy not too long after he came home. we played some tug with it and then I threw it and he brought it right back. such a good puppy

Yup, I have a natural too. She came home fetching.. pretty much. Tug, toss, fetch. She loves playing ball with the chuckit and Frisbee. I think she loves Frisbee more than anything, but it's not always Frisbee weather. Her Dam likes to fetch as well.

My first sheltie fetched too.. but only inside. They share some relatives, maybe that's where the fetching came from..

 

[Mom2Melli]

Only one of my Aussies was a ball nut (the female). My blue would wait for her to drop it and then pick it up and trot around with it so proud with his head and tail stub up. My red wanted a ball so bad he could taste it, but he had limited vision up close so if you threw it it just bounced off his head. It was so sad to see we stopped. Shay will fetch and it is lovely to see him open up and stretch those long legs of his on a lawn. Melli, nope. Not interested. No thank you.

We did it again today and she brightened noticeable for her zebra and she brought it back so proudly. If I can get her to do it a few times a day that is good exercise for her and we will surprise the teacher too.

 

[EJHUNTL]

Hanna and my last sheltie, Kali are both natural fetchers. Hanna will happily play fetch long past when I feel like throwing. Her quirk is that she likes to take the long way bad, under the coffee table and around the sofa. Kali was much better, I taught her to drop it so it touched my foot - she could also back up amd catch a ball in the air. Hanna makes no attempt, she just waits for it to land.

 

[Emmasmom]

Natalie will fetch. Sometimes I get the ball spit out at me. I will get hit with it. She will hold on to it and "kill" it. Liam will play fetch until he or I drop. Emma loves to catch the ball mid-flight and brings it to me to play tug.

 

[Katagaria]

Hahah I know how this is. I could not get Cosmo to fetch anything, I bought him a special soft toy to try and get him interested, but when I had treats he didn't care about it. I'd throw it and he'd bring it half way, so I quickly rewarded... and the only reason he was bringing it my direction was because I intercepted him on the way to him trying to take it to the stairs to chew on.

But one day... one day I wasn't actually playing with him, my boyfriend and I have Nerf guns that we were shooting at the wall... and Cosmo kept picking up the darts and bringing them back to us... and it wasn't even towards the stairs! It was to us!

So yeah... Nerf gun darts... that's what Cosmo will fetch lol.