meet the instructors | news | links | testimonials | special events | our graduate brags
 

Teaching Leave-It
By Lisa (Laney) Patrona, Dip. DTBC, CPDT, CBC

This behavior will enable you to ask your dog to take his face away from an object upon request. It is designed to teach the dog to turn away from an object that he wants.

This, like all other behaviors we teach our dogs, is done most effectively in small steps. We will start with a small food item in each hand. The food in your right hand will be used to teach the behavior and the food in the left will be the reward.

Step 1) In the beginning. Hold your right hand out, palm open – treat exposed – in front of the dogs' nose. As soon as he starts to go for the treat, close your hand and wait. Keep waiting and say nothing as
our dog tries to extract the treat from your closed fist. He may lick, mouth on, or paw at your hand…he may even bark. Just continue to wait until he takes his attention away from your hand entirely –
then click and toss the treat form your other hand down onto the floor away form you. Do this continually, until the dog backs away from your hand as soon as you close your fist. Once this happening consistently, you are ready to pair the verbal cue to "leave-it" as he starts to go for the treat (before you close your fist).

With repetition, he will soon begin to understand that when he hears the cue "leave-it" the fastest way for him to gain a reward is to take his face away from his object of desire!

Work up to being able to keep your palm open with the same result of the dog backing away from the item. After all, the object of the game is to have the dog voluntarily take his face away from whatever, when
asked to do so – especially when it is right there for the taking.

***Note: It is very important not to jerk try hand away. Keep your hand right in front of his face, under his nose and simply close your fist if he goes for it. Remember, we want the dog to understand that "leave-it" means take your face and attention away from the object. Not "when I say "leave-it" that the object will go away you"… see what I mean? Another very important thing to remember as we teach the early stages of this behavior is to avoid pushing too far too fast. For example, if you say "leave-it" and are not prepared to
prevent the dog from getting the object you may be teaching that "leave-it" means to doggie "if I Hear "leave-it" and I'm faster than Mom or Dad I can have it" – YIKES! That's certainly not what you want to teach, is it?!

Step 2) Leave it on the floor. The next step in teaching leave-it is to help your dog to generalize the behavior. Go back to step 1, except put the item on the floor in your palm. Continue to work here
until you see the dog taking his face away consistently as in step 1. Once you're good there, you can put the item directly on the floor and prevent attempts to get it with your foot, if necessary. Be prepared to thwart any attempt to get the treat! And don't forget to toss a treat down and away from the desired object. Since we are changing things, it will take a few rep's for your dog to understand that the cue to "leave-it" means the same thing whether items are on the floor or in your hand, but the process will go quickly.

Step 3) More on generalization. Work on this exercise with items in the coffee table, counters and with other objects like toys or balls. If your dog is really toy and play motivated, you can use a toy for
the leave-it part and another one (for tossing the ball for a game of fetch) to reward with!

Step 4) Applying it to every day life. Once you've worked through all of this, you can start work on items that you pass by while walking. You will need a helper for this. Put the dog on a leash and walk him
around. Next have your helper place a food item on the floor. As you are approaching, say "leave-it" and immediately click/treat if he diverts his attention from the object. The dog may even look up at
you (for this one, you should probably reward from your hand once you've passed the item, so you don't teach him to forge ahead of you to get the treat! You don't want to wreck the loose leash walking
you've built to this point). If you need to, cover the item and wait for the dog to take his attention away from it, then click/treat, repeat.

Step 5) Creating reliable behavior. Once your dog is consistent at each level, you will need to place the behaviors on an intermittent schedule. This means that you slowly and gradually "forget" to reward
each correct response. Wait until the behavior is thoroughly understood and the dog reliably responds 90% of the time before you do this. For example, click/treat the quickest leave-it responses and ignore (remember don't click either) the ones that are slower and sloppier. This way you'll be "shaping" the quickest and best responses and will build them into your dog's behavior!

As with any exercise, repetition is very important. Practice makes perfect so be patient and practice, practice, practice!

Sign up to receive Woofology's Tip of Week via email: woofologist@yahoo.com