Q&A: Have you ever trained a cat to fetch? How do you do it?

by rkleine

Question by pollux: Have you ever trained a cat to fetch? How do you do it?
I have three cats and they all love to chase things like balls and toy mice when I throw them, but they never bring them back to me so I can throw them again. My nextdoor neighbor has two Golden Retrievers and they love to play fetch. They always bring the ball back. In fact when I walk into their house, the dogs often come up to me with a tennis ball in their mouth wanting me to play fetch with them. Of course, they don't call them “retrievers” for nothing. How can I get my cats to do this? Is it hopeless?
Wow! These are all great (and encouraging) answers. Thanks. I'll leave this open a while longer to see what else I get.
I know that you're not supposed to answer your own question, but I got so psyched by all the answers that I decided to do a little research. Check out a few of these:

Web search for { train a cat to fetch }:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=train+a+cat+to+fetch

Web search for { teach a cat to fetch }
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=teach+a+cat+to+fetch

Search for { cat fetch } on Yahoo! Answers:
http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=cat+fetch

A few good/interesting results:

Teaching a Cat to Fetch
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A625592

“Has anyone ever heard of a cat that plays fetch with a ball?”
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20060615150408AAyQLSi

Training a Cat like a dog
http://www.simonteakettle.com/training.htm

Videos of “My Cat Annie” playing fetch.
http://www.zefrank.com/annie/navigation.html

Hi, I'm Orion, and this is how Brendan taught me to play fetch!
http://www.polylith.com/~orion/fetch.html

Best answer:

Answer by w.b.
I dont know why, but one of my two cats fetches. Really good too!! He will fetch a fake mouse and drop it right in my hand..

Add your own answer in the comments!

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