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Go Fetch

There's an Angry Guard Dog on your tail, what to do? Grab a stick, say "here boy" while waving the stick and whistling, and throwing it as far away from you as possible.

Sometimes, this will not be limited to a dog and a stick. Possibly due to All Animals Are Domesticated or All Animals Are Dogs.

There was a joke in Inuyasha where Kagome got the eponymous character to fetch a stick.
In Dragon Ball, Jackie Chun tricks the Man-Wolf into going out of bounds at the 22nd Tenka'ichi Budokai by throwing a bone. Man-Wolf was not amused...though the audience was.

Film - Animation

Carl uses a tennis ball from his cane to clear Muntz's dogs out of Kevin's room in Up.

Film - Live Action

Grant is able to stop a pissed T-Rex from crushing a stalled jeep (with children inside) with a flare in Jurassic Park. Unfortunately Malcolm decides he's going to do the same thing... it doesn't go as well for him. Justified in that the rex's vision is supposed to be so bad in the dark and the rain that all it could follow was the movement of the flare.
- Dennis Nedry tries it with a Dilophosaurus. It looks at him like he's an idiot before it starts spitting venom at him.
A running gag in Night at the Museum is that the T-rex skeleton can be distracted by throwing one of its ribs for it. It acts exactly a dog anyway.

This actually works in Duumvirate, because the dog likens the stick-thrower to his masters.
Attempted in The Lightning Thief against Cerberus who ignores it. Then they pull out a ball and play it completely straight.
Sam Vimes did this to a werewolf with a signal flare in The Fifth Elephant. Note that this werewolf had been playing the Most Dangerous Game with Vimes for a large part of the story, mocking him at every turn. Despite this, Vimes had the decency not to utter the obvious Bond One-Liner.
- In Carpe Jugulum, Death plays fetch with Scraps, Igor's Big Friendly Franken-dog. Had Igor not used lightning to resurrect the animal, he might never have gotten his scythe back.

Subverted in The 10th Kingdom; Wolf snarkily attempts to do this with Prince after he's been turned into gold. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny.
- The same thing was again done later, by Tony, after using the magic wishing well. This time it seems to be the key that does the trick, since Prince breaks out of the gold right afterward.

Subverted in real life. Professionally trained Attack, Bomb/Drug-sniffer, and Guard Dogs will ignore such distractions and stay on target. Needless to say, don't expect to successfully use this trope.

One of the puzzles in Kings Quest V involves throwing a stick for a dog which has been terrorizing an anthill.
This is how to get past the H.R. Giger-ized dog in the Dark World in Dark Seed, or else it kills the player.
In the Medal of Honor games, it's not advised to do this with the attack dogs and a hand grenade.
However, it is definitely advised you do so in Blood Crusher 2, as the enemy attack dogs will chase after any grenades you throw. If they are also bomb dogs, throwing a grenade at the enemy and having two or three dogs follow behind can generate enough damage to gib even The Brute.

While not deliberately done, Florence from Freefall, who is an uplifted wolf, as well as an extremely intelligent rocket scientist (in the sense that she's researching next-generation FTL-drives in her spare time) - is shown to be vulnerable to this. Despite being preoccupied with a major moral and technical conondrum at the time, when a ball goes bouncing by, she just goes "BALL!" and leaps after it. Having been raised as an ordinary puppy probably has a lot to do with it.
- Later Blunt tries to use this against her deliberately. It seems he threw the ball in the direction she wanted to run off in anyway.
Misho from Keychain of Creation uses it deliberately to distract his Lunar partner, Marena. She's basically a shape-shifting fox, but it still works... it is described as "A technique developed by the ancient Solars for controlling their Lunar partners", and Misho mostly uses it to distract Marena when she's frustrated by being in heat (and him being a Chaste Hero).
In earlier Kevin & Kell years, this trick is used to "expose" canines that are suspected of having Domestication. This plotline is discontinued in later years when Domestication becomes more generally accepted (including Domestication Pride Marches)
In Sinfest, Percy tries to distract Pooch using this, and not actually throwing anything.
- Crimney with Tomey, though Tomey sometimes retrieves a tree instead.
- Tomey also retrieves the telescope from demonic bullies.

Done by Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes episode "A Hare Grows in Manhatten" and (with a stick of dynamite) "The Gray-Hounded Hare."
Done in one of the Tom And Jerry cartoons (and is actually one of the few times Tom talks). The dog falls for it.
This has been done to Brian on Family Guy.
In Total Drama World Tour, Deadpan Snarker Noah tricks a yeti into believing he threw something to fetch.
In Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, Monterey Jack uses a wrench for this trope in order to distract a robot Angry Guard Dog.
In a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, Kodos manages to get an eager-to-help Bart away from him by asking him to fetch a wrench that he dropped, which he throws as far as he possibly can.
Bart: (chasing after it) I'm helping! I'm helping!
This is how Johnny Test tames Repto-Slicer, after learning that Repto's previous owner (Bling Bling Boy, AKA Eugene) didn't give it the love and attention a pet requires.
Tommy from Rugrats saves Chuckie from a rather large dog by doing this.