How do you go about

training a dog to hold something it its mouth?

Id like to train keely to hold things in her mouth for me. Or pick something up for me but when I try to teach her to hold something or pick it up she spits it out.

I dont have any idea how to go about doing this.

For example id like to train her to to get me the remote, getting her to find the remote is easy as pie. But getting her to actually pick it up seems impossible.

She's kind of small...maybe tape a handle to the remote so she can get a good grip on it? It's also fairly awkward to carry, even for a larger dog. When I taught Gavroche, I made a duct tape handle for my keys, and he got it pretty quick. Before that it seemed futile.

Are you having trouble teaching her to pick something up, or hold it in her mouth? I know they seem like the same behavior, but it is much easier for dogs to figure out to grab things than to actually carry them to a destination.

You can check out this thread for some ideas. I also use Shirley Chong's Retrieve as a starting point, it works well (though of course I have my own variations to get a good "service dog" hold).

ETA: I also taught Luna to retrieve, she will retrieve anything from a dime to a knuckle bone. I don't remember ever asking her to retrieve a remote, but she has done my old cell phone which was about the size of a small remote. If it can fit in her mouth, she'll find a way to get it to me.

I was having trouble with the both of it actually

Thanks alot of the links.

I just speant 15 minutes with her and she will now hold the highlighter (Its the object we are using because it fits comfortably in her mouth) in her mouth when I hand it to her and willl hold it for a few seconds. Which is great progress because before I couldnt even get her to open her mouth for the object! :lol-sign:

And She will Go to the highlighter and pick it up and start bringing it back.. But she only gets a few steps before she drops it. I think I should get a dumbell because it will be easier for her to grip! the highlighter slips around too much buts its all we've got to work with!

Thanks alot!

So don't ask for more than those few steps. Set her up to succeed. Reinforce heavily for succeeding, then up the criteria by asking for additional steps. Build distance.

Yep Thats what Im doing.. She gets so excited when she does it right

I don't know how thick the highlighter is, but for my little dogs I use chapstick, pens, and even long lego bricks...lol

I used the link in lizzybeth"s post as recommended by her (thanks again), I now have two little guys that retrieve and hand me things with great enthusiasm.

just a general training trick, if you have two types of treats, you can reward the "better" retrieves with the better treat. For dogs that are just starting and may give up easy, I found this worked better than withholding treats for the poor responses.

Keep in mind when you change the fetched object to something else you may have to "re-train" the command. Right now your command means get the highlighter, little by little you can teach her to get an objet by name or by you pointing at it. Allow for the learning curve, and have fun.