Our Golden Retriever Xena has enough retriever instincts that she carries objects–balls, small stuffed animals–around in her mouth frequently, but not enough to reliably play fetch. When I manage to get ahold of her flat ball and throw it off the deck into the yard, she runs after it and picks it up, but she doesn’t want to give it back. If I come near her when she has the ball, she runs the other way, because she doesn’t want me to take it from her. Oh well; she’s cute.