teach your cat to fetch?

So far I've taught my bengals to sit, beg, kiss, shake and to come. A few other tricks, harness and toilet (human) training are in the works.

I'd like to train them to fetch but so far no luck... any ideas? I've tried everything I've been able to find online on the subject.

It comes naturally to my 3, although Radar is not as good at bringing the toy back to the right spot and he'll only play it with certain toy mice! I praise them and pet them when they return to the right spot and will only throw the toy again once they've returned it to within reach - this is more out of laziness than any concerted effort to train them! Radar doesn't always bring it back but he'll sit next to me looking up hopefully while the mouse is halfway across the room! I'll ask him "where's Mr Mousy?" and he'll look round hopefully at the mouse bless him. He's fairly good at it, but I think it comes more naturally to some than others.

I don't think a food reward would work, they'd get distracted and forget the toy in all likelihood! Hopefully if they bring it back once by accident and get the right response from you (praise and continue the game) they'll want to repeat the experience. What is least likely to work, is going to get the toy yourself - why should they bring it back when you do all the hard work

We have a video of our Nova fetching!
(Nova Fetching on YouTube)

However, she isn't properly trained.
We use a hairband because that's what she likes to play with and when she picks it up, we try calling her to us.
There's a spot she likes to bring the hairband to, so we started by standing there and giving her treats when she brought the hairband back.
Then, we were able to try it from different places.

Sometimes, she doesn't bring the hairband back all the way.

It's kind of silly, but I've also tried "demonstrating" what we wanted her to do. I'm not sure if it had any effect, but she sometimes tries to copy what we are doing.

It's more likely that we were just lucky, because neither one of us has any experience with training animals!

Charlotte is quite insistent when it comes to playing fetch, its her favorite game. Shadow and Everest have no interest in playing fetch.

My Salem plays fetch with me...
he likes either a bottle cap or a pen cap..he will meow (kinda more like a sqeak) and then bring it to me...
and i'll toss it..he'll bat it around for a min then pick it up and bring it back...
sometimes he's pretty fast.
Sabrina however...looks at Salem and thinks..what the hell are you doing? she's not interested in that.

Pepper will play fetch sometimes. Then again, sometimes she gets selfish and takes it and runs away with it....

It may be just something that comes naturally to some cats. Natividad just started to play fetch on her own. She only does it with the little fur mice -- which is funny because she just dropped one next to me.. better throw it

I agree that it is just something that comes naturally to some cats...Two of mine Sassy and Pixie would fetch if their lives depended on it. Linus loves to fetch, he will actually bring his mouse to me to throw for him..

We play fetch at least 2 hours a day.

Came naturally to Jack--it was cute for the first 2 weeks, not so much now.

I'll be eating breakfast before work at 6:45 am and he brings whatever (ball, milk jug ring, receipt from my purse (to make into a ball, he's very creative!) and drop it into my lap. I'm not a morning person, so every morning I discuss with Jack how meowmy is not playing fetch at this hour in the morning and that he must wait until later.

Leslie

I'm not sure if you really can teach them to fetch. Some fetching cats are just natural at it - nothing anyone really taught them to do. A lot of my rexes were good fetchers - but I never taught them. They just did it on their own.

I had one 1/2 devon rex that I taught to lay down and wait till I told him "go get it" and he'd run and grab the ball of paper and bring it back to me and drop it in my lap. Then do it all over again.

this is not the response I wanted!

I was hoping someone would have the magic info for me. They learn everything else so quickly... I was hoping I could teach them this too.

I guess I'll just keep trying!

Piper wakes me up every morning by dropping her ball on my face until I get up and play fetch with her. I didn't teach her though, she just did it. Sorry I can't help!