A few years back I was in the process of training our new dog, Willoughby. He was a pretty quick learn on most things. Sit, stay, and shake, all happened with a normal amount of effort. But I got stuck teaching him one thing, fetch. Naively, I thought fetch was something dogs just knew how to do. Like barking and slobbering. I was wrong. I would throw the ball, generally, he would go after it and pick it up, maybe even run around a bit, but then drop it and lose interest. Never would he bring it back so the game could continue. Each time, I would have to go get the ball and try again. I throw, he’d lose interest, I’d go get it and try again. So really, I was the one fetching the ball. I could tell Willoughby thought this was all very curious. Not exactly the result I was intending. That got old real quick and I got frustrated.
Broken, I asked our training instructor what to do. She said something that stuck with me, “dogs aren’t stupid” (ok, not that part, I knew she was going to say that part.) Then she said, “of course he’s going to lose interest,” (subtext, idiot), “you are throwing the ball away! He finds interest in all that you do and wants to do the things you are doing. He doesn’t want some crummy discarded ball. You need two balls, the first one to throw, and the second one to start playing with and find really interesting after he picks up the first. Once he sees you playing with the second, he’ll want that one and come back to you (ideally with the first ball in his mouth).” Bingo! I tried it and it worked! We did this for a while and he soon learned to fetch. Once he got the hang of it, I didn’t need the 2nd ball anymore.
I find this same principle is true of human interaction as well. If you discard something or show no interest in it, people around you won’t either. However, the opposite is luckily true. If you think something is the coolest thing ever. They will too. It may take a 2nd ball every once in awhile to show them the way, but it will happen.