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Comment by philwelch | Hacker News Reader

I always figured that the “playing fetch” behavior was just the dog (or wolf, I suppose) figuring out that it gets to chase the thing again if it brings it back to the thrower. If you teach a dog to play fetch, it has no problem instinctively chasing the thing. It’s the bringing it back that has to be trained. But once the dog gives it back, it suddenly learns that it gets to chase the thing again, which is fun and rewarding. Eventually you might be minding your own business but as soon as the dog finds the ball, it will bring it to you. The dog plays fetch because you’re going to throw the ball, not because you already did throw it.

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I did search and rescue training with dogs in the army and we always had to start things off with a toy to get the dogs "into it", even in "sharp" situations. But once they were started everything was like a game for them, they'd run ("play") until they couldn't anymore. You'd have to stop them.

If you're ever in a SAR situation and a dog finds you, you should be prepared for a little rough treatment from it. It'll likely jump all over you, be up in your face and all that. It's just looking for the toy, and when it find out you don't have it, it'll move on, calm down or go back to the owner. And it'll bark a lot. Like a lot. It's not out of anger or anything, it's just what it has been told to do when it thinks it has found what it was supposed to find. I've had a dog tear my entire goretex uniform to pieces looking for the toy when we were both trapped deep under snow. Good times!

What would happen if you coincidentally had a dog toy on you?

Maybe that’d be good for avoiding accidental mangling, but if it means it skips the barking and alerting step then maybe it’s not the best idea

They're looking for a few very specific toys, so that won't really be a problem.

For the most part, SAR dogs (and similar working dogs) are trained to view specific toys as incredibly high-value. For whatever play they really enjoy - fetch, tug-of-war, etc - they'll have a particular toy which only comes out in connection with "work" and always heralds praise and a play session with their trainer. Since SAR breeds are smart, high energy, and a bit intense, their reaction to that toy/event can be startlingly strong.

The goal is essentially to avoid this issue: a dog toy is unlikely, but maybe the subject has a peanut butter bar in their pocket, and that shouldn't derail the rescue. So ideally the desire for the work reward will outweigh basically anything found during work (squirrels, food, other toys, or even bad stimuli like loud noises), even if those things would be awesome to the dog when they're not "on the job".

I have 2 dogs, Sissy the older lab mix, who loves playing fetch all the time, and is in general possessive of the balls. But she'll chew them up. My other dog Melkor, who's a lot younger. I have to get him wound up before he'll like to chase the ball. But he's not that good at fetch. One thing I found he likes if he's on the dog bed, and I throw the ball up towards him, he'll catch it, let it go and I'll have to get it. I should train him more.

Who's playing fetch with who, then...?

The dogs trained me quite well ha.

Dogs are frequently trained to retrieve game, which is never thrown again for their benefit (though some might be given to them to eat). Your model would say that this is unrelated to playing fetch.

But people also train dogs to do all kinds of things. They'll do whatever you want for no other reason than that you want them to do it. (With limits based on the dog's personality and intelligence.)

It all ties in. A lot of dogs are specifically bred for retrieving behavior. (See: "golden retrievers", but newfoundlands are bred to retrieve _people_ from the water, too.) A lot of dogs like interacting with their humans. Both of those are sufficient for many dogs to play fetch. A single-factor model where the reason to play fetch is that you like chasing things misses a lot of reality.

I don't know why my Australian Shepherd doesn't really play fetch well. But he'd much rather play interactive games with me or my wife where he and one of us both actively participate in the fun, which usually involves me playing tricks, misdirections, and sleight-of-hand with his other toys (which requires him to think).

We were warned of this sort of demand / expectation of the breed and it hasn't bothered us. But it's funny that he knows so many commands (verbal and nonverbal) and we just failed to teach him how to fetch.

Shepards aren't retrievers.

But they do like keeping track of things / people and keeping them "herded" and collected.

Not a failure of teaching, the breed just isn't programmed for it.

Yeah. Most "utility" dog breeds have been created simply by selecting for aptitude and propensity for a specific aspect of ancestral pack hunting behavior – tracking, stalking, pursuing, herding, catching, killing, or bringing kill back.

I suspect my rescue mutt has a lot of shepherd breed in him and he’s the same way. He gets extremely agitated if either my wife or I walk away from him. It’s almost impossible to get him to focus on any games, work, or even food if one of us has walked away. (He’s okay with one of us leaving him at home, but it triggers if one of us breaks off from him outside.

I suspect the herding behavior is probably bred/trained based on a highly overdeveloped impulse for wanting to keep the “clan” together.

My dad hunted ducks so I grew up with retrievers (Labradors), I just didn’t want to get too deep into the weeds since actual trained retriever behavior is a lot more advanced than just playing fetch. Though like any sort of behavioral conditioning, the hook that gets the animal initially started with the behavior (getting to chase a thrown toy) can be gradually changed to the desired behavior (retrieving game). My dad actually had a training tool for retrievers, it took a blank .22LR cartridge and launched a foam dummy for the dog to fetch. That way the dog gets accustomed to the sound of the gun going off and starts learning that it can be related to the retriever behavior. Eventually you get the dog trained so when you shoot the duck, the dog will wait patiently, you signal the dog to fetch the duck, and the dog brings the duck back to you. Retrievers also have the incredible instinct of carrying game in their mouths very gently.

But yes, dog behavior is much more deep and interesting than that. If you’ve ever been at a barbecue with herding breeds, even if they aren’t really trained they still instinctively don’t like letting people wander off, for example. But I think the chasing game is probably the primary hook that gets most dogs into playing fetch.

Yeah. My cat will actually bring the laser pointer to me so that I play that with her. She seems to understand that it is connected somehow to the magic red bug that she likes to chase.

Same here. One of my cats will do that if given the chance. All of them know where the laser is kept, and order breaks down whenever I touch that drawer.

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