My BC absolutely loves playing ball, she lives for it. However she had a terrible habit of refusing to give up the ball (I.e. won't drop it/ drop it and then pick it up as soon as you reach for it/ drop it a mile away!) With some help i have finally got her much more reliable at dropping the ball and letting me pick it up. At the moment i am working on getting her to bring the ball closer to me. However, ideally i would love her to give me the ball in my hand, but i am not sure if this will ever happen. If you go to take the ball from her mouth she moves away, so i either let her drop it first or give her a fuss before taking it and then throw it immediately as a reward. Is there anything else that will help or do some dogs just not like to do this?  The constant bending plays havoc with my back! ;-)

When my old lab went through this phase of getting fairly close but not wanting to give the ball to hand, I started moving backwards away from her. That meant she kept on approaching, so I would slow down and she still thought this was a very funny game, kept on coming (as I was praising) until she reached me. Loads of praise as I said 'Give' - something she knew already - I never taught her to 'drop' - then a titbit and more praise till I threw it again. Or gave it to her to carry.

http://www.chuckit.co.uk/

You will never have to bend down again :D

I found playing a gentle game of retrieve while sitting on the sofa helped a lot. I ignored Tara if she dropped the ball at my feet (I keep my hands right up against my chest) and only gave her attention when she held the ball up for me. Now she presents with a ball 95% of the time :)

Daisy

tohme, i saw your link to the "chuck-it" site!!!  i got one of these handy little ball throwing tools and i love it!!  it has saved my back from bending down, saved my shoulder from throwing strain, not to mention my hand from being covered in ball slime.   it throws the ball much farther than i could ever throw it.  what a great little invention!!!!  do you have one of these??

Another thing you could try is to teach 'hold' first.  This is what we did with our BC first.  If you teach them that and then when they come towards you tell them to hold they will keep hold of it and hand it to you when you ask.  Personally I found clicker training very useful to train this.

Claire