Teaching the all important and DROP IT!

[Toffee's Mom]

What if your dog picked up something and you're too far away to try and get it out it's mouth?
or worse he has something that is dangerous but then runs away from you... with something awful in it's mouth... or tries to swallow and chew faster to get it down it's gullet so it's gone by the time you can wrestle it away from him.

This is fun and one of the most positive training I have done; with Toffee I used the trade up game, which worked fine, but he still judges how far away I am and thinks if he can just swallow it in time, he might just choose that instead, lol

Having a reliable drop it cue can save your dog's life and it also makes your life easier.
So with Spruce I taught him this method, and I am amazed how well it REALLY worked, if you commit to training this a few minutes few times a week... in all kinds of scenarios etc, just as described in the video.
It also tends to really help with impulse control and a leave it cue for other behaviours, too

Here is Spruce today...
http://youtu.be/TQ4FEosFuvk

Here is the video I used to teach it with, it's such a great resource if followed step by step.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndTiVOCNY4M

 

[bkzoo]

Thank you for sharing this - incredible! I will for sure be using this with Baker. I would like to teach Toby as well, but he is not the least bit interested in toys.

 

[BarbV]

It seems very intensive. I'm trying to remember my puppy school training with Bacca. We used leave it as the command. Or off.

But the principle was pretty simple....the idea was to make YOU more interesting than than thecitem you want to avoid

I must find a post that that describes it rather than me trying to recall. But it starts with Look!

Get back to ya!

 

[Toffee's Mom]

It seems very intensive. I'm trying to remember my puppy school training with Bacca. We used leave it as the command. Or off.

But the principle was pretty simple....the idea was to make YOU more interesting than than thecitem you want to avoid

I must find a post that that describes it rather than me trying to recall. But it starts with Look!

Get back to ya!

OF COURSE it is intensive, that's why you'd have to watch the WHOLE video, if one is looking for short cuts this isn't it
I never had a dog before spit a nice peace of beef out at me when I asked him, have you?
There are plenty of other methods, but now this is the only one I recommend

 

[Toffee's Mom]

Thank you for sharing this - incredible! I will for sure be using this with Baker. I would like to teach Toby as well, but he is not the least bit interested in toys.

You can teach it, even if no toy drive, with anything, like when they are trying to roll around in something extra yummy and stinky lol
Spruce prefers food over toys, too.. but he does like some toys. This is just so that I can call him off ANY other food, so I did a lot more of drop it with really yummy foods, like hot dogs for example

 

[Justicemom]

It seems very intensive. I'm trying to remember my puppy school training with Bacca. We used leave it as the command. Or off.

But the principle was pretty simple....the idea was to make YOU more interesting than than thecitem you want to avoid

I must find a post that that describes it rather than me trying to recall. But it starts with Look!

Get back to ya!

Drop it and leave it are 2 totally different things.

One is getting them to avoid or ignore something on the ground- That is simple! Celtic can already do that.

Getting them to drop something of high value that is already in their MOUTHS is very very hard.

 

[Toffee's Mom]

This is our 'leave it' behaviour with steaks for Canada day treats.
That is much easier to train, than a drop whatever is in your mouth cue, Dr Shelli is right.
Leave it you can just reenforce the good choices and reward at the moment they look at you, click and reward and then hand them the treat they ignored afterwards.
A drop it means they are in the middle of eating a really yummy thing and make the choice to drop it for you, because you have build a foundation and conditioned an awesome behaviour

 

[take4roll10]

The video is awesome! I'm definitely going to try it'll. I've struggled with getting my dog to drop food she finds on the floor. I usually have to wrestle her and pry her mouth open, while she is trying to eat it as fast as she can. She loves food!

Irene, how long did you condition before you moved on to food? The guy in the video doesn't give you a time frame or say what to do if your dog eats the food you asked her to drop. The video gives you the impression that he did it all in one day. I know he didn't, but since he never changes clothes or says this process takes days, blah, blah, some may assume it's a one day process.

 

[Mignarda]

I got to test Dickens's "drop it" just this morning. One of the grandkids was playing around with a bowl of dry Cocoa Puffs and dropped one on the floor. Dickens picked it up, at which point I told him "No!" and I'm proud to say that he immediately spat it out. He got rewarded with a piece of Sheltie Jerky.

Not that a Cocoa Puff is poison, but it could have been an ibuprofen, or something even worse!

 

[Toffee's Mom]

The video is awesome! I'm definitely going to try it'll. I've struggled with getting my dog to drop food she finds on the floor. I usually have to wrestle her and pry her mouth open, while she is trying to eat it as fast as she can. She loves food!

Irene, how long did you condition before you moved on to food? The guy in the video doesn't give you a time frame or say what to do if your dog eats the food you asked her to drop. The video gives you the impression that he did it all in one day. I know he didn't, but since he never changes clothes or says this process takes days, blah, blah, some may assume it's a one day process.

The guy goes for walks later in the video, toward the end and starts conditioning all over again.

In controlled environment and close to me Spruce was displaying that cute happy and fast spitting food out behaviour fairly fast, like within a couple of weeks, tops?! I had done small, few minute session a day I just did it in my daily, normal interaction if the occasion arose. Then I was slacking for quite sometime and was so happily surprised that a few months later Spruce did spit something out I asked him to just on reflex, without thinking, he was fairly far away from me. I was SO amazed to realize what a strong foundation that few minutes day had set!!!

I then I committed to keep doing a lil training while on walks and other higher arousal times, like during feeding or when he gets his morning Kong before I go to work, which is his super happy dance and spin time *sigh*
I am going to see if he spits out yucky greasy smelly hot dog for me and make a video, lol that will be a true test, hahahaha


ON a sidenote, if you already have established behaviour of wrestling Bailey and grabbing things out of her mouth, lol it ill take a lot longer to re-establish the behaviour, because as you know what they learn first, they learn best. Toffee is by far not as good or as happy obliging as Spruce is, because he never got that foundation from me Especially with food, I used to holler to drop it and wrestled it out of his mouth if I had to... Since that is all I knew back then! Then I switched to trade up to higher method (from lower value in his mouth to higher value what I have in my hand) and it turned things around, but by far Toffee isn't as pleased about it and as trusting as Spruce having been taught with this method