An Explanation About Fetch

As anyone who has read anything about the baby will know, she is extremely fond of playing fetch. Unfortunately, though she's a fanatical about fetch -- first thing in the morning, anytime during the day, afternoon or evening, the last thing before bed -- the baby has not quite perfected her skills at said game. Trouble is, not to embarrass her or anything, I don't believe she's fully grasped the concept. Not completely anyway. Don't get me wrong, she's quite enthusiastic about chasing after whatever is thrown. And, she has no trouble retrieving any such items, but, and here's the problem, she's not always great about bringing it all the way back. I offer the following as an exhibit (please click on it for a larger image):


Note the distance between the carpeted area, where I was, and the two items that I had tossed for the baby to fetch -- (1) rawhide stick, 2 ft away; and (2) chew bone, 7 feet away. Further note how the baby is cooling her heels by the rawhide stick, licking her chops and awaiting the next toss.

Unfortunately, the baby does this quite often. Of late, I've tried to encourage her to bring the tossed object all the way back to me or at least within my reach. I'm not sure it's working. I think she thinks it's a devious ploy to steal such objects away from her. As mentioned, the baby can be quite possessive. That said, the baby's proclivity to leave things outside of my reach has meant that I get as much exercise out of our games as she, relatively speaking anyway.