Let’s go down a rabbit hole together…..

It’s become pretty clear to your 4 instructors that “leave it” might not be most student dog’s strongest behavior.  I’m going to offer a solid, established and well tested method of teaching leave it, and suggest this snowy day is a great time to get started.

First, a tiny bit of theory.  When we ask the dog to “Leave it” we are generally focused on what we want the dog NOT to do—don’t eat that, don’t steal that etc.  When we focus our training on what NOT to do, we leave hundreds of other options (ok, can he sniff it? Push it with his nose? Pee on it? Roll on it?).  One cue is one behavior—that is, the same word can’t mean “don’t pee on it, don’t eat it, don’t sniff it” etc.  (Can “sit” also mean “down?”).  To be clear, one behavior can have multiple cues (down, flat, plotz can all be the trained word for the behavior ‘down’) BUT each cue can only be trained to a single behavior (Heel can’t cue both heeling and recall for example). Before you teach the dog to leave a desired object, the good trainer will train the dog what behavior is associated with the cue “leave it.” And, if we want to be able to use this cue in multiple situations, we’d like the meaning of the cue to be very specific—in this case, “return to me NOW for something special.”

Please use high value food, or favorite tug toy/fetch toy whenever teaching leave it.  Remember, some day that cue has to have such value that it will win over fried chicken remains.

Step 1: Begin in the house today.  Dog off lead (to prevent you from snatching and jerking). Might want to be in a smaller room.  Cue “leave it” in a happy or snarky tone (doesn’t matter—train the one you’ll use in real life), and deliver food next to your ankle.  YES—cue “leave it” and give the dog food.  We are teaching him to come to you for great stuff on that cue. I often alternate between dropping the food and delivering from my hand.  I suggest you start this process with the dog kinda close to you, but not under cue—ie, not in a sit or down or watch or ready.

I’m not exaggerating here: once the dog is coming when he hears “leave it,” leave the small room and please do this at absolute minimum 20 times a day…randomly in the house.  If it’s great in the house, do it on walks—but not when you need it. Give the cue when you two are walking happily, he’s jauntily bouncing along, not sniffing….”leave it!” And deliver food next to your ankle, or drop it on the ground next to your foot.  And yes, let him eat it.  The goal is that “leave it” means run back and get great stuff.

We will check your “leave it” behavior in the next class, if everyone has a nice, brisk response I’ll post step 2.

Rabbit hole:  “Leave it” needs to be a clearly established behavior, with as clear of a response to the cue as “sit.”  Please don’t be sloppy here.  Food next to your ankle, not handed forward to the dog.  Food delivery hand does not move until AFTER the “leave it” verbal cue is completely out of your mouth (don’t let your movement become the cue).  Ideally, you will have done at least 1000 (I’m serious) “leave it” practices before the next class.  We want to see your dog spin back to you on that cue.  And, this is a cue that you will train daily for the rest of your dog’s life.  You want such a high reinforcement history with “leave it,” that when the day comes and you can’t reinforce….he doesn’t notice.  It’s so darn easy to keep this cue fresh….once it’s installed.

Here’s a video of Fletch.  I used both food and a toy for the demo.  If your dog likes both, use both at different times like I did here.  https://youtu.be/CjorB8x23mk?si=iQiSTvoP1Cj1En6y