Why do dogs like to fetch?

[EGarrett]

Obviously they get some kind of practice out of it, but what kind of practice?

Is it to practice catching small prey that moves very quickly? In that case, is bringing the object back simply an "add-on" instinct that allows them to practice the hunting over and over? How did they play this game in the wild? Or is it an instinct that involved only in the few millenia that dogs started living with humans?

The wikipedia article on "fetch" sheds no light on this.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
Obviously they get some kind of practice out of it, but what kind of practice?

Is it to practice catching small prey that moves very quickly? In that case, is bringing the object back simply an "add-on" instinct that allows them to practice the hunting over and over? How did they play this game in the wild? Or is it an instinct that involved only in the few millenia that dogs started living with humans?

The wikipedia article on "fetch" sheds no light on this.

It's not necessarily practice for anything practical. It's play, and dogs like to play. It may be an outgrowth of some hunting instinct, but I'm not one of those guys that figures that every action is practice for some survival skill.

Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes, a game is just a game.

Dogs are pack animals, and group play strengthens group membership cohesion. Socialization plays an important part in a dog's being well adjusted, as well, and play is an important part of socialization.

One reason wolves don't make very good pets for most people is because wolves need pretty much constant socialization. Without it they become surly and ill tempered. Dogs have been bred to limit the surliness and ill temper, but they still long for socialization. (Ever wonder why they act like that whether you've been gone for 6 hours or 10 minutes?)

Wolves need constantly to be in the pack. Dogs just want it more than about anything.

In the wild, sticks, bones or patches of fur will become a toy for a pack of wolves or dogs, with one grabbing it and flinging it and all the other tussling to get it.

We, as human beings, have replaced the pack in the dog's thinking.

Fetch is particularly fun for a lot of dog because they get to do... well... dog stuff like run at top speed and grab and tussle and bite and and be rambunctious over and over again, which things are normally forbidden to them...

AND sometimes they get to do it with their PACK LEADER! YAAAAY!!

The thrown object comes back to the thrower because the dog learns early on that if it doesn't, the game tends to end early. When the dog's done playing, the thrown object stays wherever it lands.

I used to know a dog whose favorite toy was a hunk of firewood two feet long and four inches in diameter. I'd throw it as far as I could and that dog would fun out there and CATCH it. To protect his teeth, I had to do that, "throw the wrong way," trick to get the log to hit the ground and not his teeth. He'd still, sometimes, go all the way in the wrong direction and still get to the log thrown in the other in time to catch it. Fast dog!

When he was done playing, he'd carry it back to the woodpile, drop it and sit down on it.

Sometimes, a log is more than just a log.

[godless dave]

It's a trait that was bred for in retrievers. You shoot a duck, it lands in the water, and your trusty retriever swims out and brings the duck back to you.

In my experience, though, many dogs, even Labradors, will go after a thrown ball or stick instinctively but need to be trained to bring it back; they'd rather play keep-away.

[FreeRomanian]

hm...

[XBoxWarrior]

The wikipedia article on "fetch" sheds no light on this.

Well, here's your problem.....try "Retriever", not "Fetch".

Now I understand that most dogs will bring toys back to you, but stop when they feel like it. A retriever will never stop, to a fault...

I own a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, who will jump through ice on a frozen pond to bring me his "toy". I have never hunted with 'Moses', but both his parents were farm raised bird dogs. It's in his 'blood' to retrieve, whether it's one of his numerous toys, or the unfortunate squirrel that finds it's way onto my deck...He never kills things, just brings them to me.

It's what makes the Moses happiest...

http://lh3.google.com/SLambeth/R-XNWfPsscI/AAAAAAAAAFk/f9Cwy30pLag/s144/HPIM0013.jpg

ETA: Moses said this post was no good without his pic...;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retriever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_Retriever

[LukeB]

Bah, tell that to my Labrador. It maintains a "you threw it, you go get it" attitude.

It took over a year to work out how to swim though so maybe it's just a really slow learner.

[casebro]

I've always assumed it was based on the instinct to bring dinner back to the pups or the alpha leader.

That said, my 10 week old blue heeler/standard poodle cross must be plain greedy. She heels, but don't retrieve nothin. Or maybe she is just too smart to give anything up. Yet.

[MetalSeagull]

You can also look at the Wikipedia article for "prey drive". Aspects of this trait have been selectively bred for in different breeds, for different purposes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_drive

My Newfoundland will play fetch for a while, but tires of it long before a retriever would. My Australian Shepherd couldn't be less interested in chasing a toy or bringing it back. She's never fetched anything in her life. But she will try to herd the Newfoundland while the Newf plays fetch.

[Ichneumonwasp]

I used to know a dog whose favorite toy was a hunk of firewood two feet long and four inches in diameter. I'd throw it as far as I could and that dog would fun out there and CATCH it.

I know it's a typo, but I just have to say that I love that second sentence above.

[Deathshead]

Watch dogs play with other dogs. They don't bring the object back to the pack leader. They play keep away until they find something else to sniff or run around with. Whatever one dog has the others want it as well. Kind of like kids.

[quarky]

I'm trying to breed a dog that will fetch firewood from the woods, and stack it neatly.

so far, no luck.

[Lilith]

My dog was not a ball chaser. At the dog parks, she would chase the dogs that were running after balls, but she was clueless about the whole "fetch" game. I got her when she was several years old, and I assumed no one had taught her this game. She didn't play at all the first year I had her (her previous owners kept her outside 24/7, and I suspect she didn't get enough interaction). She did learn to play, and we had a grand time. But fetch - she never got it (pun intended).

[DavidS]

I used to know a dog whose favorite toy was a hunk of firewood two feet long and four inches in diameter. I'd throw it as far as I could and that dog would fun out there and CATCH it. To protect his teeth, I had to do that, "throw the wrong way," trick to get the log to hit the ground and not his teeth. He'd still, sometimes, go all the way in the wrong direction and still get to the log thrown in the other in time to catch it. Fast dog!
You knew Barney?

That was my dog... full name Bernard P. Fife 'cuz as a pup he'd run to the TV when Andy Griffith reruns came on. Half shepherd, half collie, half the neighborhood (yeah, that's 150% but then he was almost 150 lb); good looking beast, heavy gray undercoat with long guard hairs & flagged legs, black saddle, black mask. Loved his toys, and at his size most of the world qualified as "toy" -- golfballs, bottle rockets, snowballs, rocks, bricks, cinderblocks, firewood. Dad had the neighbor convinced we'd trained him to steal their firewood. Feared nothing but an ironing board (knocked one over as a pup) and a flyswatter (nobody knows why; never used against him, couldn't hurt him anyway).

Well, thunder could send him under a bed (yes, that involved lifting the bed himself to make room), but a hailstorm was great fun; he'd insist on going out. His dense coat was effective padding against golfball-sized hail. He'd stand barking on the patio, catch a stone on the bounce to crack once between his teeth, rinse and repeat.

Our best game was to try to hold Barney from reaching Mom when she called. Though my brothers and I were all healthy teens in the 6'3" 200# class, the record was only about thirty seconds.

I miss Barney <sniffle>.