Shelties don't fetch?

[SheepOfBlue]

I have a question for everyone who has ball crazy shelties. How many of your shelties can do a dead retrieve. Dead retrieve being the object(ie ball) is not throw but place or is laying somewhere away from you and you point to it and they get it.

I consider a dog that will naturally do a dead retrieve a natural retriever. Justice did. None of my others did and it was hard to teach them. My Lab would do dead retrieve naturally. I was just wondering how common it is in shelties as Justice is the only one I've known. I bet Bitsy can.

Actually while Sca is a frisbee and ball addict he has trouble with this. I never 'taught' him to fetch he just always did. However while he will wander and snag something to play he struggles with being directed. This has been a challenge at flyball (biggest followed by his poor stay). I started to put him on leash and tie him. Walk out into the yard and set a ball down (with cookie at first) then when I go back point and let him go. He has improved slowly but it led to his first success at flyball last week

 

[wjo53]

Both my girls have loved fetch. Chelsea more so, April, up to a point.

With Chelsea, it was all about the chase. Throw a ball, kong, frizbee, stick, she'd be after it. She'd jump, and take anyone of them out of the air. If by chance, they hit the ground, and stopped before she got to them, they were out of play, and Dad had to go for a walk to retrieve. She'd play as long as I could, sometimes taking time to chase seagulls while I was walking to get the object.

April is a good retriever at the start, but after a short while, she gets tired of it, she'll run to where the ball is, but then lay down, leaving Dad to go for the walk to retrieve. After about 15-20mins, we pack up, and go do something else.

 

[Toffee's Mom]

Toffee does the dead retrieve, since he's a puppy.. the frustrating thing is that he never places it in my hand, always three/four feet away from me, lol
I am too lazy to try and train it better, because my criteria just isn't high enough, I guess.

 

[BarbV]

Fergus will do it with a ball or a rawhide chew. Their balls are always outside and I if I say " let's play, find your ball and bring it here" he does it. I don't allow them to take their rawhide chews outside but sometimes one of them will sneak out with it. If I tell him to go get the chewie and point in the general direction of where it is he will go get it and bring it in the house. Totally amazes me because I never taught him to do it.

Indy sneaks his rawhides outside all the time and buries them in the snow to hide them. Bacca's goal is to try and find them and bring them back inside. Bacca won't actually chew them, but he loves to steal them from Indy! Silly pups!