I did not write this but I think it is important and puts into words well what I wanted to talk about today. From Canine Evolutions on Facebook: There is a question I get asked constantly: "Bart, should I play fetch with my dog every day? He LOVES it!" And my answer is always the same: No. Especially not with working breeds like the Malinois, German Shepherd, Dutch Shepherd, or any other high-prey-drive dog, like hunting dogs, Agility dogs, etc. This answer is often met with surprise, sometimes with resistance. I get it-your dog brings you the ball, eyes bright, body full of energy, practically begging you to throw it. It feels like bonding. It feels like exercise. It feels like the right thing to do. But from a scientific, behavioral, and neurobiological perspective- it's not. In fact, it may be one of the most harmful daily habits for your dog's mental health and nervous system regulation that no one is warning you about. Let me break it down for you in detail. This will be long, but if you have a working dog, you need to understand this. Working dogs like the Malinois and German Shepherd were selected over generations for their intensity, persistence, and drive to engage in behaviors tied to the prey sequence: Working dogs like the Malinois and German Shepherd were selected over generations for their intensity, persistence, and drive to engage in behaviors tied to the prey sequence: orient, stalk, chase, grab, bite, kill. In their role as police, protection, herding, or military dogs, these genetically encoded motor patterns are partially utilized- but directed toward human-defined tasks. Fetch is an artificial mimicry of this prey sequence. - Ball = prey - Throwing = movement stimulus - Chase = reinforcement - Grab and return = closure and Reward - Reinforecment again. Every time you throw that ball, you're not just giving your dog "exercise." You are triggering an evolutionary motor pattern that was designed to result in the death of prey. But here's the twist: