# Teaching 'Leave It'



## aesthetic (Apr 23, 2015)

(I'm not sure where this belongs- does it go into the training sub forum? If it does, will a mod kindly move it there for me? Thank you!)

So Kaizer has the bad habit of picking random stuff off the ground and swallowing it before we can even move towards him. He's started leaving leaves alone but where we live for the time being, there are a lot of cigarette butts, rocks and plastic wrappers. Thankfully, we haven't had an incident where he's swallowed a cig butt, or a plastic wrapper. Rocks are another story, we're lucky that Kaizer drops the bigger rocks on his own, but the smaller rocks we have to dig around in his mouth to get out.
Kaizer has 0 patience, something we obviously need to work on (but have no clue how to) and teaching him 'leave it' the Susan Garrett way is painful for me. Not only is Kaizer impatient, but he is also stubborn. The worst combination ever. He'll start out licking my hand, then pawing at it, then gentle bites, and then the full out biting. I don't want my hand to become a mangled scratched up mess, but teaching Kaizer to 'leave it' is extremely important.
Is there any other method to teach him leave it? Thank you so much


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

I started with Drop It, before introducing Leave It, simply because puppies are FAST and I am super paranoid about ANYTHING other than dog food going into her. I probably spent the first 4-5 months of Shala's life watching the ground in front of us like a hawk, and if she picked up something, I said DROP IT, and opened her mouth and either pulled it out or shook it out. She got a treat every time anything came out of her mouth. It was constant, and I picked out some pretty disgusting stuff. But she learned. She will now spit out most anything she picks up - including yummy stuff like a dropped piece of pizza, a piece of bread, etc., and sticks or wood chips. Once she had Drop It down, I moved on to Leave It.


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## Cpc1972 (Feb 23, 2015)

Leave it is just now starting to sink in with Chloe 8.5 months. Is the Susan Garrett method your talking about the it's your choice where you put the food in a closed fist and they are to back off. Chloe has always did that when I played it with her. I would start with maybe when he goes to pick something up while on his leash give it a jerk and say leave it then treat.


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## solinvictus (Oct 23, 2008)

This is from kikopup Solving Counter Surfing but she starts out teaching a default leave it with food on a plate on the floor. (start with low value food and build up to higher value food. Once the pup understands the game you can work on items the pup would find outside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZCIeEUm_n8

teaching a drop on cue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndTiVOCNY4M


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## aesthetic (Apr 23, 2015)

Sweet Girl- I get what you mean about watching the ground in front like a hawk, for the longest time, i was afraid to take Kaizer out except to do his business because he would eat everything and a majority of our outside time was me pulling something out of his mouth. He does drop things in his mouth when we wave a piece of kibble in front of his nose, so maybe teaching Drop It first is a good idea.

Cpc- yeah I'm talking about the Its Yer Choice game

solinvictus- Thank you for the video! I love Kikopup (from the few videos I've seen) I'll give it a shot!


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

aesthetic said:


> Sweet Girl- I get what you mean about watching the ground in front like a hawk, for the longest time, i was afraid to take Kaizer out except to do his business because he would eat everything and a majority of our outside time was me pulling something out of his mouth. He does drop things in his mouth when we wave a piece of kibble in front of his nose, so maybe teaching Drop It first is a good idea.


I guess I was teaching Leave It at the same time, now that I think about it, because on walks, I would be watching and I would say Leave It anytime there was something she might pick up and keep her walking by it. If she went to smell something I didn't want her to pick up, I just pulled her away and said Leave It and probably treated her. What you are aiming for is to say Leave It and have her look to you for a treat rather than pick up the desired food or object.


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## Driggsy (Jun 12, 2014)

Bumping this up with some questions for training gurus out there 

do you teach a default "leave it", and for what items? food a person is holding? food on a plate? 

if you do teach a default, how do you add the command "leave it" for other items, but keep the default? in other words: if I teach my dog to ignore items on command, will he think that everything (including the sandwich in my hand) is fair game until I say "leave it"?

do you use "leave it" for people or other dogs you want yours to walk past (people who don't like dogs, for instance), or do you use another command?

I've rather confused myself..thanks for any advice!


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## ChaosReigns (Jul 1, 2015)

Discord and I are still working on Leave it, he has no patience for anything as well. I think its an age thing. I used pieces of ham and would drop it in front of him telling him to 'leave it' I was crouched at his level and when he went for it I'd place my hand over the treat and tell him to 'look at me'. by raising my pointer finger (catching his attention) and then putting my finger to my nose to make him give me eye contact. He picked it up pretty quickly, at least...in the i know what i need to do to get that treat.


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## Atis (Jul 8, 2014)

In our case we use leave it as a pretty generic command to avert his attention from anything that may be in his mind desirable (food scraps, squirrel ect) but not the best choice in our mind. As mentioned earlier by someone else the goal is to bring your dogs attention back to you meaning eye contact. The easiest way is if you always offer something better than what has his eye, a treat, lots of praise, a toy or anything that works. As far as the sandwich, in my opinion any food at all at times is off limits until it's offered and they know it. They're not perfect but they do know it.


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## wdadswell (Dec 17, 2015)

I know this is an older thread, but, I have finally had enough of my Hoover child. After getting my hand chomped on, trying to get something out of Bodie's mouth, this morning,(unsuccessfully, I might add and did try to exchange it for a liver treat-he just sucked that back too, without taking a breath!)the leave it, command, was long overdue!

I know, a lot of people love clicker training, but it's not for me. I found Victoria Stilwell on line, (sorry, not good at posting links) and watched her video on leave it, with an older dog. It was amazing! She did it in 3 stages, so you are thinking, how long is this going to take me?? 

I only ever practice for 5 minutes, with my 10 week old's short span mind and believe it, or not, that's all it took! I did use a little of leftover Christmas turkey and of course, I have the smartest puppy in the world!! Lol-sooo going to keep my pockets loaded, from here on out-not with turkey-he is so food motivated, shouldn't matter and practice, practice


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