Stops short while playing fetch

[jmac93]

My 20 month old GSD loves to play fetch, and about 90% of the time retrieves the toy perfectly. Every now and again she will retrieve the ball but stops about 5-10 feet in front of me and drops the toy. Is she testing me? When she drops it she usually starts sniffing/looking around randomly. About a minute later she brings the toy back to me. What should I do when she drop the toy? Should I turn my back to her, or maintain eye contact, or...? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,

John

[PaddyD]

Abby does that too. She wants me to try and get it so she can pick it up and run away. She does it with the frisbee too. Sometimes she will catch the frisbee then turn around, drop it and look at me. I just turn and walk away and before you know it
there is a head with a frisbee poking between my legs.
I am working on 'Bring it to Me', DROP and Leave It with some success. But mostly she likes to play
tug of war with it before the next throw.

[Duke-2009]

Same thing here with Duke. As much as he loves to fetch tennis balls and catch the frisbee, he will stop short on retrieval or circle me and not drop it. Since HE is the one who initiates the play, I too turn and walk away if he is going to playfully tease me. He will then drop it at my feet or sometimes we are in the pool and I throw it from the pool to the woods and he brings it back and drops it in the pool especially if we ignore him.

Just show your dog who is boss of fetch. They instinctively want you to chase them in good fun.

[Todd]

Heidi seemed to get the biggest kick out of me chasing her. She would run just fast enough for me not to catch her. If I didn't chase her, she would just lay down and wait or stop the game. Funny thing is that she would sometimes give the ball back to neighborhood kids.

Abby plays fetch quite a bit better. She's no where near as athletic as Heidi was, but she does drop the ball or frisbee at my feet.

Wish I had a great answer, but that was one of the things I never solved with Heidi...but since she seemed to like it so much, I just indulged her.

[Caledon]

Dakota does this sometimes and it really annoys me. My husband would not listen to me when I told him to stop chacing her and he continues to do so. She thinks it's a game. When she does this I take the ball and it's game over.

[JustMeLeslie]

My girl started doing this same thing about 2 months ago. It's really frustrating for us when she drops the ball and won't bring it back until she wants to. She starts sniffing all around and ignoring commands. I just yesterday found out something that worked. I tossed the ball a shorter distance and told her to come and she did it everytime. It seems like in a longer throw she was getting distracted on the way back. With the shorter distances she fetched perfect everytime, but the longer ones she would drop it half way and start the sniffing thing. So I guess I'll be throwing shorter distances from now on.

[paulag1955]

When Shasta stops bringing the ball back to me, I take it as a signal that she's ready to move onto another game. I give the "right here" command to signal that she's to pick up the ball and drop it at my feet. I throw it one more time, then while she's fetching it, I start kicking the soccer ball to change games.

[jmac93]

Thanks all for the comments!

[ed1911]

try backing away as she approaches. make her chase you a little.

[doggiedad]

put her on a long line. throw the ball.
call her to you. reel her in. don't throw
the ball the length of the line. you don't want her
to run out of (to the end of) the long line.