On another thread, someone mentioned they had taught there dog the leave it command so they didnt eat poo. I have a dog training book, which has the leave it command in it, but it involves using two people to train it, and I only really occasionaly have that , is there another way of doing it, I remember at puppy class, we did something like holding a trreat in your clenched fist and then , once the dog moves away from the treat, you reward with a treat, have I got that right ? Would really like Otis to learn this one, as Im sure it will be really useful with stopping him eating food too. Thanks, Maggie
Re: The leave it command We'll I have taught Simba the Leave It, using a clicker. Have you done any clicker training? It works very we'll.I used the Kikopup videos on Leave It., if you Google it you will find it. I am struggling a bit with the Leave It at the moment, though. Simba is very good in the controlled environment of the house, using treats that I put down and tell him to "leave it". It's not quite as reliable in the great outdoors at the moment. He is probably 70% reliable on it, I need to do more training on it, using the clicker, which I FINALLY can do, now that the weather has warmed up some. Hope this helps! Let us know how you get along with it.
Re: The leave it command You can teach 'leave it' yourself doing as Lisa suggests. Use a really boring thing to start with, though, like a bit of carrot, and put it a few metres away. Have him sit and say 'leave it' as he is sitting, then mark (do you use a marker work or clicker?) and reward with a treat. Then move a little closer and repeat. Closer and repeat. Then go back to the original distance and make the food slightly more interesting - a piece of kibble. Gradually get closer, rewarding him for leaving it. Once he's managed that go back to the original distance again and make the food a handful of kibble and gradually get closer. If you make the food more attractive you must increase the distance initially. When he has got it add in more challenging elements like walking him past the food - but go back to a few metres distance and the boring carrot and build up from there again. Reward him when he is closest to the food, when temptation is greatest (not after he has already gone past it). It is imperative that he does not get the food though, so you can do this all on lead so you can stop him if you need to (keep the lead loose unless he makes a dash for the food).
Re: The leave it command We taught leave it as you described in puppy class and then put food on our knee or on Riley's paw.....we eventually had cause to use it out and about as he showed a predilection for horse poo bleugh! We continue to train it with dummies and other dogs being the thing to leave so it's never fallen into disuse good luck !
