Comment by HankB99
1 day ago
Our kids have a Rottweiler that loves to chase a ball, Bring it back and then dare us to try to take it away from her. She can drop if convinced. Or I have a second ball that is more interesting, causing her to drop the other ball. She can hold two balls in her mouth so I have to wait for her to drop the first ball before I throw.
She also has a large (about 1 food diameter) ball that can't possibly fit in her mouth and I can kick that at which point she'll drop the little ball and try to get the big one in her mouth.
Yea the "No take, only throw" game seems more endemic to Mastiff descendants, as opposed to the true "retrieval" behavior described in the top comments about Retrievers. My boxer/bulldog mix loves to chase the ball, but will fight like hell to not give it up. Like you, I rely on bribery or manipulating the properties of the ball to make it more easily relinquished.
My trick with my previous dog was to just always have two toys for the fetch session. She'd usually drop the one she was holding when I wound up to throw the next one. Kinda like juggling.