Originally Posted by Lerxstcat

They were originally bred as hunting dogs, I bet. You NEEDED a dog that would go fetch and retrieve the bird you just shot with your bow and arrow, or the rabbit or whatever that ran into the woods a ways and then bled out.

Better to send the dog to get it than to go slogging after it yourself. And the dogs that weren't good at it probably became the stew while the ones that could were treasured and bred.

So fetching the stick today is kind of a vestigial response of something that used to be necessary for the dog AND its human to survive. I'm just guessing here but it makes sense.