My 14 month old yellow lab is a nightmare once he gets something in his mouth that he shouldn’t have. Once I finally get hold of his harness he turns his head the opposite direction and growls if I try to pull it out of his mouth. I have tried training him to “drop it” or “trade” and this works some of the time but there are certain things that he will not release. Any help would be much appreciated. I’m at my wits end. I’m very upset with him. I feel he knows better.
He knows you’re trying to take it away from him, for sure. Dogs don’t have a sense of right and wrong and we do them a disservice when we think in those terms. If he will give you some stuff and not others, then it’s simply a case of proofing your training against the higher value things. Think of it in yourself; if you had picked up something that was a bit interesting and someone forcibly took it away from you, you’d be a bit put out. If this happened a few times, you’d learn to avoid that person when you had something interesting. If it was done thing you really wanted, say a bar of chocolate or a stack of cash, then you’d be even more determined to keep them from taking it. The way I teach a give behaviour is by ensuring I give the object back again way more often than I take it. This means a lot of planned training sessions with things I can do that with, rather than only being reactive when the dog picks up something I gave to take away. To start with, using something like a tug toy works well, if you have a dog that likes tugging. Start a game of tug, then hold a treat over his nose. Wait for him to drop, say “yes!”, give him the treat and immediately start to play again. Do this a couple more times with the treat then start to fake the treat, so it’s not actually in your fingers. When he drops, show him it’s not there, and give him a treat from elsewhere (a pocket or pouch) so he still gets the reward before starting the game again. Do this for ten repetitions and end the game by either letting game the toy and saying “all yours” or by taking it away in exchange for a jackpot reward. After a few goes, once he’s releasing consistently when you fake the treat, add a verbal cue before your hand signal. Eventually you can fade the hand and just use your verbal cue. If he doesn’t release on the verbal cue, you’ve gone too fast, so do the hand signal again after the verbal cue for a few more reps. Once you’ve played a few sessions of this and he’s got the idea that you taking the toy is a good thing, then start adding in some movement towards you. You want to end up where you’re not forcing things from his mouth, but he’s bringing them to you and giving them to you willingly. So, during tug, let go of the tug for a split second then re-engage. Then let go and take a step back and encourage him to you. I like to keep the excitement level up when I do this, telling the dog they’re really strong (the words don’t matter to the dog but it’s easy to keep the tone right when you’re using words that are positive to us... “wow, you’re so strong! You got it, well done!!”) and the dog will step towards you with the toy. Make a huge deal of this and start the game again. He’s learning the game is always better with you. Over time, extend the distance. Once he has these two concepts down pat; giving up the toy gets him a treat AND the toy back, and that the game is more fun with you, you can start to combine them when you’re playing. Ask for a give, give him a treat then toss the toy a couple of paces. Encourage him back and start the game again when he comes to you. Can you see how doing this builds up the skills you’re after? He’s coming to you rather than you chasing him, and he’s giving you something valuable rather than you forcibly taking it. You need to start proofing this against other things. Again, I like to be proactive where possible, do I will set up opportunities to train. If I know my puppy has a thing for dish cloths, I can leave one somewhere she’ll tske it. As soon as she does, I get excited (“Wow! What have you got?!”) and encourage her to show me. Realise this has so much more value than her toy so you will need to go back to the beginning of the process above, using a treat above your dog’s nose to get him to drop it, then giving the cloth back to him. If you think of the “give” behaviour as a bank account, it helps. Every time he gets a favourable outcome (a treat and the item back) you are making a deposit into this account. Every time he loses that object, you are making a withdrawal. The more in credit that account is, the more likely he is to give you the object. If your account is empty, there is nothing to pay with. By setting up these training situations, you put yourself in a position where you can pay into the account ten times for every withdrawal. Which means, when you really need to make a withdrawal, there is plenty of credit. More valuable objects need bigger withdrawals but also make bigger deposits when he gets them back. Even when my girl manages to get something I really don’t want her to have, I play this game. As long as it’s not dangerous or very precious (in which case I shouldn’t have left it out in the first place!) then we can play. On walks, I’ve played the give game with all sorts of things, including a decomposing deer leg. Yes, it was grim, but it was a brilliant training opportunity to work with something of super high value. And she was happy to play the game because our bank account was really full from lots of training sessions. Every time the value of the object goes up, you have to go back to the beginning. In time, he will generalise, and you’ll get through the steps really quickly. With the history you have so starting off with an empty account, you might have to start off with him on a lead so he can’t run off with the object. Good luck
Great advice from snowbunny. We are at the stage with Keir (six months old) of using extra tasty treat for the ‘give’ cue. I use it to practice at least once a day when he has anything, toys, chews, sticks, you name it. He always gets the thing back. If it’s something I don’t want him to have I swap him a dentastix for it. I don’t thing they are a great treat, but he does, he loves them and he forgets all about whatever he had. I was very glad I’d taught Tatze ‘give’ when she picked up a poisoned rat and was dancing round me with it, very pleased with herself. I carry a piece of stinky dried tripe (wrapped in cling film!) for such eventualities.
The approach snowbunny has outlined above really does work. The key thing is to make time to train a ‘give’ rather than just reacting when your dog takes something he shouldn’t have. It’s also really important when training (again as snowbunny says) to not only offer food as a swap but to give the object back. We live by the sea and in the winter storms there are often dead gulls on the beach. When Molly was young I thought I’d never be able to overcome her urge to pick them up and shred them, but by training with swaps and handing them back she’s learnt to give them to me. It does take time and patience but can be done.
