I think I've confused Stanley a little bit with my phrases for things. He's a little thief so we've been focusing on leave it. Whenever he can have something I say "take it" and he takes it out of my hand. But when I make him food I've always made him sit down until the bowl is I front of him and then I say "take it". And he can dig in. Just so he's not jumping up at you when you're carrying his food really. This morning however I did that, then just went about my business but a few minutes later I just noticed him staring at his full bowl still. So I went over to see what was wrong and said "go on, take it" and he didn't. So I picked it up put it in front of his nose and said "take it" and he started digging in and I put the bowl down and he carried on. So now I think he only thinks he can take it if I hand it to him. Is there a way to correct that or will I have to get a new cue for his dinner? Poor thing looked so sad just staring at his food bowl
It sounds like Stanley doesn't understand his verbal take it cue, the cue is you handing him something, not the word. So you need to rework your take it cue. In addition, you could use take it only associated with leave it and a default leave it, and release for everything else. So if you ask Stanley to sit while you put his dinner down, you can release him to take it and he should feel free to then just eat his dinner.
