For many dog parents, fetch is one of the top games you can play with your pup. It’s easy to incorporate into walks, or simply play in the yard.
When you play fetch, all you need is enough space for your dog to run around, and one of the best dog toys or something else that’s safe and fun for them to chase after and bring back to you.
However, fetch shouldn’t be the only game you play with your dog, and it might actually be best if you don’t play it on every walk you go on. Amelie Steele – or Amelia the Dog Trainer, who’s a professional trainer and behavioral consultant, has explained why this is the case in a recent Instagram video.
“Here’s how one of these is probably making your dog’s behavior worse,” Steele begins while holding a tennis ball. “If every single walk that you take your dog on involves playing fetch with them and you’re just going back and forth having them chase the ball, they bring it back, and it goes on and on and on, then you’re probably creating a bit of a monster for yourself.”
Getting our dogs to play repetitive, high-impact games like fetch provides them with a lot of adrenaline, and this can make their behavior worse. Not only that, but it can be detrimental to their joints, too — yep, fetch can cause joint pain in dogs.
And it’s not just playing fetch with your dog yourself that can have an impact. The same goes for things like ball chuckers; there’s just an awful lot of impact on our dogs when they’re chasing the ball for long distances and then bringing it back repeatedly.
So, what else can you try, if you think you’re playing fetch with your dog all wrong? “Instead,” suggests Steele, “If you do bring a tennis ball, you can use it for short stints of training. Make sure that you’re getting your dog to do things in between and remember to not do it every single day.
“It might be a nice thing to do a couple times a week, but if every single walk becomes fetch, this is really unhealthy, and it can also create dogs that are just way too ball-obsessed and won’t do anything other than focus on the ball.”
If fetch is one of your go-to activities with your pup, why not try mixing it up? You could incorporate more training exercises into your walk, or what about some scent work? There are so many possibilities, including these 12 tips to help keep dog walks fun. What will you try first?
