My lovely little boy Chester is almost 16 weeks. He’s amazing and typical lab does anything for food. I’m trying to get the basics down with “leave it” I’m holding a low value treat out in one clenched fist and a high value treat behind my back. After the first go, when he stops sniffing, and he gets the high value treat then that’s it - he knows there’s hotdog bits being handed out and he doesn’t even engage with the low value treat. Just sits there ignoring the low value until I give him hotdog. So it’s great, but also makes it difficult to teach “leave” because he doesn’t even try to go for it - I feel I’m not getting a chance to reinforce it if that makes sense! I can’t do it with toys because as soon as he smells the food he disengages with the toys. It’s really important I teach him this. He wolfed down a tea bag on a walk last week and the vet had to induce vomiting Would it work if I tried a high value treat and an even higher one behind my back? I also made the mistake of teaching him “wait” first, where I put a treat on the floor and say “wait” and then “ok” is his release word. He’s great at that but I think it’s starting to confuse him the difference between wait and leave! Feel like I’m getting it all wrong and it’s such a vital skill.
Do you want to teach leave, which requires you to be around to give the cue, or don't eat until I give a cue?
Hiya, I want to teach leave. He can do “don’t eat until I give a cue”. I use “wait” for that. i want him to leave something potentially dangerous to him, and he gets rewarded with something else from me
here it is I think your wait cue only works if you are present to give that cue. The idea I had in mind was to teach the dog not to eat unless she was given the cue to eat. But I think the excellent video will cover what you want.
This is great, thank you. He can pretty much do “drop” most of the time (maybe not when he’s got food in his mouth!). This is something we’re still working on. But what I need is to get him to leave something before he picks it up, if that makes sense? Because if he picks up food in the street that’s it - no time for “drop” because he’s already wolfed it down! I need to stop him before it’s even in his mouth!
What will happen is that you will say leave as your dog explores/hovers over something and the dog will turn to you for the treat. Dogs are rational. Why waste energy on picking up something to only drop it. And to make doubly sure leave occurs start to give your cue leave before he even picks it up. Reinforce for turning to you and you will get what you want. You have to first convince him that you can be trusted, that dropping the item is a sensible thing to do.
