My cat fetches. No one trained her, she just started doing it one day after she was about a year old.
I had a cat that would fetch, and now my fiance’s cat fetches. Both of them just did it on their own though; we never trained them. KeithT’s (fiance’s) cat will both bring toys to you that you’ve thrown and bring things to you when she wants to play. But it definitely is on her terms and when she’s tired she’ll just stop fetching so you have to go and pick up whatever you threw. Or she’ll go and pick it up but then detour to her food bowl, drop the toy, eat, and then forget that she was bringing the toy to you. We regularly find her feather wands near her food bowl.
As with other posters, one of my cats will fetch as long as I keep tossing his toy mouse. I almost always give up before he does. However, he did it naturally, I didn’t train him. The other cat would not fetch if his life depended upon it.
For years I pondered the fact that in circuses, a number of big cats could be trained to do all sorts of tricks. I wondered why house cats could not.
Then, some years ago, I saw a TV show where a woman put several cats through all the tricks the big cats do. I suppose with enough time and patience, most house cats could be trained.
But, why bother?
I misread the thread title; I was expecting a discussion on how to make your cat flush.
My cats don’t fetch, but they occasionally bring me things, like dice and game pieces from games left set up. They will chase string, though.
Sometimes when I won’t throw his stick for him, my cat tries to throw it for himself. It’s very sad and I think he needs company. Or therapy.
One of my two cats loves to do this. I always get tired of it before she does. I’ll walk away to do something else leaving the ball of paper on the floor in front of her.
The next morning I will almost always find the ball of paper in my shoe.
The cat I’m babysitting will bring me crumpled up pieces of paper for me to throw. If she’s really in the mood, she’ll bring it back, but in her own sweet time.
I saw this thread yesterday, and I ignored it. So help me, I thought the title said “felch” rather than “fetch.”
Few cats are as interested in pleasing humans as dogs tend to be. But I have seen cats who played “fetch” games, and I knew one cat who loved to pursue and leap for Frisbees, then bring them back for another round. It looked to me as if the cats enjoyed these pursuits, and hadn’t really been taught by anyone. I have both dogs and cats, and the cats seem to be every bit as intelligent as the dogs, but much more wilful and self-directed. I believe my cats love me, but not enough to cause them to do something they don’t already want to do. In that respect, they are a lot like most of the humans I know, who are also resistant to learning “tricks.”
There aren’t enough EW’s in the universe for that! (And besides, I think the shape of the muzzle would prevent them from getting adequate suction.)
I’ve had several cats that liked to play fetch. When Cobbius was around 5 months old he found a ratty half inside out yellow rubber glove in the basement and developed quite an attachment to it. As long as we were willing to throw it he would bring it back. He also brought it to bed every night. It got so ratty that my husband finally threw it out, then Cobbius found a ratty piece of duct tape in the basement. 
He still plays fetch with toy mice and balls of paper. I swear Chester learned to play fetch from watching Cobbie.
I think the ony link to a picture I’ve ever posted here was the picture of Cobbie carrying his beloved Glovie.
Balderdash. Dogs think they are human. CATS think they are gods.
Which Are Smarter, Cats or Dogs?
Emphasis added.
Yet they do just fine at theme parks. I honestly don’t remember which one it was, but at a theme park in California years ago (Sea World?) I distinctly remember watching the trainers control a motley assortment of animals, including birds and cats, to do tricks on command. And animal “wranglers” in Hollywood can train just about anything from a spider to a tiger to perform on cue. I don’t see cats as an exception.
Some links:
Animal trainers, including training a cat and a mouse for one movie, Mousehunt.
Animal wrangler Luke Hura claims to have trained cats for movies.
“It’s not that cats are too regal to perform tricks or obey commands, Coren says. It’s that they don’t understand how to do them. They just aren’t able to learn language and read social cues as well as dogs.”
Balderdash. As evidenced in this thread, they are able to fetch. They also can know and respond to their name. And lord knows they know what the sound of a can opener is.
Ok, regal is not the best word, but they don’t have less intelligence, just a different kind. They’re not social creatures in the same sense dogs are. They don’t live in packs. So they don’t interact with other creatures in quite the same way. Stands to reason.
As a member of a pack tending species, who nontheless doesn’t like packs that much, I guess that’s what makes me a cat person.
Good question - my cats are definitely trained. They are trained to do what I want them to do, which didn’t include fetch. I trained mine to come when called (tuna training really does work for cats) and stay off counters, tables, and coffee tables. I trained Jim’s cat the same way, but I got her much later, and she doesn’t listen nearly as well, but she knows there’s only one alpha female in this house, and it isn’t her. Cats need the will to please to be trained well, in my opinion - my cat has it, and Jim’s cat doesn’t.
As for training dogs, most dogs I’ve seen act quite a bit like cats - always testing their human to see if he’s really serious about the command, not just following commands immediately.
I’ve had several cats over the years that would fetch. They all figured it out on their own and did it when they felt like it.
I guess I didn’t phrase my statement very well. I didn’t mean to say that cats think that they are like humans. Cats would, no doubt, reject this insulting notion. I think that cats are like (some) humans in their stubbornness and self-absorption. A resistance to doing things in order to please others is a rather common human characteristic, I think.
Cats can be trained. Many cats respond to their name (both of mine do), and some people train their cats to come when they’re called.
I’ve heard of some cats being trained to fetch, but mostly I’ve found that they either think of it on their own, or they just don’t do it.
Funny fetch story: My sister’s cat, Boo, came up with the game of fetch herself. She will make you throw her felt mouse all day long. However, this only works if you keep the bathroom door closed. Sometime last year, she learned that she really, really likes to see her felt mice floating in the toilet. So now, if she has a chance to get it into the toilet, she won’t return the mouse to you. She’ll go drown it. 
My cat does that, too, but he prefers to drown the felt mice in the water bowl.
I keep hearing the idea that cats aren’t social creatures, but I think the myth of the cat who walks by herself is, just that, a myth.
While cats are not social in the same way dogs are, I don’t think it’s at all true that they don’t evidence complex social interactions. I’ve seen a documentary on feral cats which certainly shows that they live in groups, with female cats sharing kitten duties, some mothers caring for all the babies while the other mothers hunted.
I’ve also read that cats who live in close proximity (such as cats in urban environments) will develop territories that are not just geographic but temporal (i.e. one cat will patrol a similiar or over-lapping geographic territory as another cat, but at a different time), the time difference being to minimise the need for territorial battles, which indicates a reasonably sophisticated form of territorial awareness.
I have several cats of my own, and they are pretty social with each other, they play with each other, share beds and food and co-exist with the dogs, none of which would be possible without an understanding of how to live in harmony with other animals.
A couple of years ago I interviewed a man who trains cats for television advertisments and film. He said they weren’t all that hard to train, but that you had to be a bit more patient and willing to break the tricks down into small increments. Of course, part of that might have been because we don’t routinely train cats the way we do with dogs, the cats were starting from scratch without a basis of simple obedience.