Hi everyone, I'm having an issue with my 9 month old black lab. Every time I take my eye off him for a split second (sometimes even when I'm staring at him and telling him not to!) he will find a stick and start running around with it. He then REFUSES TO DROP IT. He will run around like this until the stick disintegrates or get he gets bored, it's been 40 minutes on occasion. Crucially he isn't under control / listening to a word I say whilst doing it. He doesn't run off with it but he will dance around just out of reach. I also don't want him to hurt himself with splinters etc. We have tried: 1) Ignoring him, he just has a wonderful time playing on his own, the behaviour / stick seems to be the reward in itself. 2) Offering him other toys - not interested, even his favourite tug toy 3) Offering him tempting food / treats 4) Playing with him e.g. throwing balls, running around like idiots etc. 5) Telling him to drop it (usually responds to this) - he ignores us 6) Teaching him to bring us the stick - message doesn't seem to get through Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!!!
Hello and welcome to the forum. This is very common behaviour. This post might help you: https://thelabradorforum.com/threads/teaching-drop-give-and-leave-it.21345/#post-326288
Thanks for the suggestion, will certainly give it a go. We play tug a lot and it's his favourite, I virtually always let him win or I say dead he drops it and is excited for a good treat. When he picks up a stick he gets almost transfixed and slightly manic and wont come within 10 meters whilst running about like a wild thing, he goes "selectively deaf" as it were Is the suggestion essentially to go back to the beginning and make the dead command so ingrained that it cuts through the selective deafness?
Yes. You simply haven't generalised the behaviour to something of this high value, so that's what you have to do.
