Neither one of my dogs is interested in fetching.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. That's an inborn trait. Some dogs have it. Some don't.

Retrievers live to retrieve. My brother had one, and when she was just a newly acquired puppy, he tried rolling a ball on the floor and she brought it back to him. If he wasn't careful, she would literally retrieve until she was exhausted. She was always finding sticks for him to throw. One year my grandmother had a vegetable garden, and we found the dog running around with a zucchini in her mouth.

Once I was at a lake resort and saw a black Lab running around begging people to throw sticks into the lake for him to retrieve. If one person got bored, he'd find another one. However, he was so into retrieving that he wore himself out, and he began to sink while in water over his head. One of the swimmers saw him and towed him into shore, pulling on the stick that was gripped between his teeth. He lay on the shore panting, but as soon as he recovered, he was running around with that stick again.

The dog we had when I was growing up? No way! He was an English setter, English springer spaniel, pointer mix, and although he was smart and knew how to do a lot of tricks, we never got him to retrieve. We'd throw something, and he'd look at us as if to say, "If you want it so badly, get it yourself."