Training fetch to a lurcher?

Casper is a pretty even mix of sal, grey and whippet and then a bit of collie. The first two being the most prominent behaviour/looks wise I believe.

Have had a collie before but he picked up on fetch within a week mostly of his own accord, including figuring out that it must be returned to me.

Casper isn't much of a player in the house, doesn't really like toys unless they have food. Outside he will run, and play chase with other dogs.

I'm wondering if its worth my time teaching him fetch or even if he's capable of learning it and how i go about it? I've tried throwing toys which he will follow/run for and sniff, but rarely ever picks it up (except once a few months ago when he did return it to within a few feet of me twice!).
I used to enjoy this game with the collie and often would find it useful for keeping him distracted when outside. I would like this witth Casper, he doesn't do anything bad out on walks and recalls great (though sit, down etc are hit and miss unless in the house where it is perfect).

He just seems a bit lost when we're alone and he's sniffing around then looking at me for what to do next. If fetch is out of the question is there anything else we can play?

Of course you can teach your dog to retrieve, but you need to have a plan with a clear process map, with milestones to your end goal.

Just throwing something for a dog is not training it to retrieve it only works if dogs have an inbuilt desire to retrieve, but you can teach a very reliable retrieve and improve the accuracy, speed, consistency of "natural" retrievers by such a procedure.

There you go

http://www.dogsey.com/showthread.php...light=retrieve

Thank you I will give the topic a read!

Office lurcher lives for the tennis ball flinger...