Tidy up the toys

Your dog collects the scattered toys and drops them into the basket on cue — unlike fetch, the item ends up in the box rather than in your hand.

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾 · ~21 days · 5 min/session

Learn first: Fetch, Drop It

Step-by-step

1. Make the basket valuable

   Take a low box or a soft-sided basket your dog can drop a toy into without diving deep. Keep it in one fixed spot and toss treats inside until your dog approaches it happily. Reward every glance and every sniff towards the basket — before the real work has even begun.

   💡 Avoid boxes with high, hard rims — a dog knocks their chin on them and starts avoiding the whole thing.

2. Drop the toy over the basket

   Hand your dog a toy to hold, lift the basket in both hands right under their chin and say “Drop it”. The toy falls inside — mark with “Yes!” and reward with a treat from your pocket. Do six to eight reps a session until dropping over the basket becomes automatic.

3. Lower the basket to the floor

   Lower the basket a hand-span every few reps until it rests on the floor. If a toy lands outside, say nothing — pick it up, hand it back and raise the basket a little again. Only the drops that land inside get paid.

   💡 Pay most generously for the first drops once the basket is down — it’s the hardest step in the whole trick.

4. Add the cue “Tidy up”

   Once your dog drops reliably into the floor-level basket, say “Tidy up” the moment they pick a toy up. Say it once and stay quiet while they work — chatter half way through only distracts. Reward the instant the toy thuds inside.

5. Add distance to the toy

   Place a toy one step from the basket and point at it. Your dog has to pick it up, turn and carry it over — that’s the new skill, because until now everything came to you. Add a metre at a time, and stand by the basket at first so the direction is obvious.

   💡 Stand by the basket, not by the toy. Dogs carry things to people — use that instead of fighting it.

6. Chain several toys

   After the first successful drop, point straight at the next toy and repeat “Tidy up” without pausing to praise. Reward every second toy, then every third, until the payment comes only once the floor is clear. Two or three toys a session are plenty — this is mental work and tires a dog more than a walk.

Common mistakes

• Switching to the fetch cue half way — the two behaviours end differently, and the dog starts bringing the toys to you instead.
• Pulling the toy out of the mouth when the dog hesitates at the basket — it teaches them to guard and to hang back.
• Rewarding a drop beside the basket instead of inside it — the criterion blurs and hits become random.
• Asking for the whole floor in the first week — the dog quits before the chain has ever been built.

Problems & solutions

My dog brings the toy to me instead of the basket.

That’s the old fetch behaviour, and it’s been well paid for years. Stand right beside the basket, hold it at chin height for a few sessions and never take the toy into your hand — keep your hands behind your back until the toy is inside.

My dog drops the toy centimetres short of the basket.

Raise the basket back to ten centimetres off the floor for a few days so the mouth has to clear the rim. Pay only for drops inside, and lower it more slowly than you did the first time.

My dog climbs into the basket and pulls the toys back out.

The basket has become a toy in itself. Move to a shallower, wider container, reward from a step away a second after the drop, and put the basket away after the session so it doesn’t turn into a rummaging box.

Reward ideas

Small treats from your pocket the moment the toy thuds inside, plus a three or four piece jackpot for a clear floor. Verbal praise alone works only once your dog already knows the whole chain.