Not Able to Throw "Catch It"

Seems I remembered wrong. Ump cannot throw a treat for River to catch. We tried to encourage him to toss it a few different ways. His therapist modeled it for him by doing it herself first. River, naturally, thought this was a great game - he likes anything that gets him treats. I talked about how he had liked to play baseball and about throwing a ball for that. I had previously tried to show him just dropping it down at River. River does a pretty impressive "catch" when a treat comes straight at him from overhead. Ump would just not release the treat. He would hold it above River and say "catch it" but not let go and then switch to "ok" or "here" and feed him the treat by bringing his hand to River. Still OK from River's persepctive. When we tried to get him to do a toss instead, he said "catch it" but hand signaled for "spin" which River obliging did; then Ump handed him the treat.

I don't know if his therapist wants to have this as a goal for Ump. It's certainly not a problem for River. He does his best to follow signals and favors hand signals over verbal commands and is happy to oblige. I'm not concerned that my dog will get confused either. So, it's just an observation on my part, that something I presumed to be so simple - tossing a treat to a dog, is not, in fact at all.

Ump perhaps helped me to realize that we use the same "catch it" verbal command when we place a treat on River's nose for him to flip up and catch, although it has a different hand signal. So River has the ability to generalize that "catch it" means catch the treat or toy however it is coming at you - from above, a toss or when you flip it in the air yourself.