June 2018 Training Challenge: Leave It

[Amanda]

For June we are going to challenge our dogs to build their Leave It behavior! Here are the guidelines:

1. Kick off with a short description of your goal behavior as well as where your starting point is.
2. Commit to working on this behavior throughout the month.
3. Check in with progress reports once a week.
4. Feel free to share brags or questions to troubleshoot sticky spots.
5. Have fun with your dog!

If you can video or take a pic your final result for the end of the challenge, that would be awesome!! If you are late to join in, that’s ok! Jump in!

So both of my dogs currently have pretty solid leave it’s for food in hand. For me, leave it is defined as: do not pick up that object/stare at that distraction and give me sustained eye contact until released. I like the sustained eye contact part because it allows the dog to move past high distractions by refocusing their attention to the handler. Jovie can leave it with food in an open hand and me sitting in front of her 100%. She’s about 60% on food on the floor. Rheese can leave it with food in a closed hand 100%, open hand 50%. She never snags a piece, but she will hand bump sometimes.

Goal for Jovie: moving leave it on a loose leash past food on the ground. I would also like her to hold a stay and leave food long enough for me to spell out her name in treats and take a photo.

Goal for Rheese: leave it with food set down on the floor. I would also like to get her to lay down next to her name already written in treats and take a picture. I don’t expect her to stay while I lay them out though.

[connie]

I am going to do this with Dee and Beau -- Alex and Rowley have good 'leave it' behavior.

When Dee did her test for Rainbow AAT, she was *barely* held back from the three crappy bits of kibble on the floor, and at no time did she take her eyes off that kibble. LOL! Dee is all in when it comes to stuff she wants to grab and eat, I probably can't get quite as much enthusiasm from her for leaving that stuff, but we'll try. (Rowley and Alex both immediately switch their gazes to me and away from the tempting item, it's like they are afraid to look at it in case it calls to them and drags them over to it. LOL!)

So I am going to start this with Dee today. I want her to not only not throw herself on the item, but I want her to look at ME. She was not quick to catch on to the 'look at me' game where you have food in one closed hand and the dog can't have it until they give you sustained eye contact, and this will be a similar challenge for her. Here goes!

Good for Dee: looking at me for five seconds while there is food on the floor near her. (I love the picture of her lying next to her name in food letters, but I also have to respect the 5 years of her highly predatory behavior to food and realize that isn't realistic for us.)

Good for Beau: learning the 'look at me' game and giving me eye contact with food in my closed hand. Baby steps for him, he's done none of this before and I don't know how avid he will be.

[emmas_mom]

I'm been thinking on this one, because I've never had a need for a 'leave it' command - if I accidentally drop something on the kitchen floor, a quiet 'uh uh' from me causes Maggie to sit nicely in front of whatever I've dropped until I either give her the okay to eat it or give her a treat while I pick it up. So I guess 'uh uh' is her 'leave it' command, though I use it for other things too - it basically means "stop what you are thinking of doing and sit nicely until I give you some direction". She has an excellent 'drop it' (something she apparently was taught before I adopted her) - twice when she's been exploring in the grasses while we are out, she's come up with tasty treats (in one case a BBQ'd chicken wing!) and the instant I said drop it, she did - and sat to wait for the trade.
What we are working VERY hard on (because of some reactivity to some dogs, and her terror at the sight of young children) is the "Watch me" command. So, in keeping with the challenge of the month, I'm going to steal one of Connie's goals" Learning the 'look at me' game and giving me eye contact with food in my closed hand.

[SherriA]

Leave is is something I've worked on since Henry arrived, and it's something I'll probably always have to work on. He's a beagle, afterall! So we're going to add consistent practice on this skill in June with the goal of not having to say it in such a sharp voice. I instinctively raise my voice a bit and bark "leave it!" whenever I drop something, but I'd like him to respond as consistently when I use a normal tone of voice too.

[Amanda]

So it happened again this month A thought provoking article was shared with me that just happens to be about our training challenge. This time, from the amazing Kay Laurence. What do you all think of this? Know better, do better, right? But what about striving for better than “good enough”? And how to apply this to the leave it command.

https://www.learningaboutdogs.com/better-than-it-was/

[connie]

I started to read that and I will read it carefully later today when I have time -- last night at class I was working 'leave it' with Dee, and like Sherri, I don't want it to be a command in a voice that says 'you bad dog!' so I tried making it look differently to Dee. She will completely ignore a piece of food on the floor if I give her something else to look at, like my closed hand that later delivers food to her. This is a small step but I have never known my Scavenger Girl to willingly ignore food on the floor, so I was impressed! If we can build on that so she ignores food when I'm not right on top of it -- yes, there is that element of 'I won't let you get it' that would be nice to remove -- I will be really impressed!

[connie]

I read that article after a discussion with a dog-owning (and dog-training friend) about how the 'leave it' command has become what 'NO!' used to be, in dog training: an all-purpose, get-away-from-that, stop-doing-that bark of the owner, with no constructive request for action. Thirty years ago when I trained my first dog I learned the truism that it's easier to teach a dog TO DO something than to teach a dog TO NOT DO something. (This is true of humans, too, by the way. An alcoholic friend told me many years ago that it was easy going to the Y to work out and teach yoga every single day, day after day; what was hard was not drinking, day after day. Not doing is harder than doing.)

I liked this article a lot, it appealed to me because I want to make sense to my dogs and I want them to make sense to me. I wonder if I can do this with Dee.

[connie]

Progress report for us: Dee has a 3-week AAT assignment at the high school where we did our Observations; we have done two of the three visits and will do the third next Tuesday.

The students -- there are about 10-12 of them in the group, with 3 or 4 AAT teams -- are very taken with Dee and have taken on the task of teaching her 'leave it.' So we are getting in a lot of practice, and it's going well! The students each do their own 'leave it' drill with her; some like to line up treats in a row and then release her to eat her way down the line of treats, while others like to put just one treat really close to her paw, which makes her almost cross her eyes. But she's now recognizing the command 'leave it' and does not require forcible restraint when the food is there. This is not to say I would ever trust her without a leash on her when food is present.

[SherriA]

Good for Dee!

We haven't done much leave it practice with all the chaos of foster puppy in the house. He's leaving next weekend, so we're going to be too late for this challenge, but I'm looking forward to the next one!

[emmas_mom]

Way to go, Dee! Maggie has an impressive 'leave it' , but less succesful with learning to 'look at me' rather than staring at the treat to make sure it doesnt disappear. Funny girl sometimes doesnt even touch it when i say 'take it' , and i either have to repeat the command a few times, or move it toward her. I'm away this week, and forgot to ask the petsitter/housesitter to continue working on it.

[Amanda]

So i failed this month big time. My kids are home from school (read: absolute chaos here) and we have had some other training priorities take place as I had some behaviors I needed for demoing in class. Leave it happens less formally on a regular basis so I am going to attempt to take the photos. We do a default leave it with the food bowl every morning so we’ll see. I think we might be able to pull it off...

[emmas_mom]

I wish I had taken a video, but Maggie came through with flying colours on the very last day. She's always had a good leave it, but can't tear her eyes away from the object she is to leave despite tons of work on "look at me". Then today, I was making sandwiches with some freshly sliced roast beef - a super high value treat for her, as I have only just begun to try her on a variety of proteins now that her allergies seem to have subsided on raw food, and people food has been off limits - and dropped a piece accidentally. She left it, as she was told, but I decided to do a bit more work with her. As soon as I deliberately placed a little piece on the floor and said 'leave it', she sat and stared right at me! She repeated this several times, each time looking at me. And for the grande finale, I placed a piece of meat about two inches in front of her paws, told her 'leave it' followed by 'stay' and walked out of the room, out of sight for 10 seconds, then back in - and she was still sitting there with the meat on the floor in front of her, watching me return! When the lightbulb goes on, the lightbulb really goes on with this gal! So proud of my Maggie!

[SherriA]

Way to go Maggie!

[Amanda]

Wow!! Amazing!! Go maggie!

[Amanda]

We did it! Rheese even amazed me and watched in position as I placed the kibble to spell her name. So proud of my little minions. Training two puppies is a challenge, but we are trucking along!

[Amanda]

Ideas for the next challenge? We could start mid-July or August?

[emmas_mom]

Congrats, Jovie and Rheese! As for the next challenge, the two things Maggie really needs work on are: (1) barking issues - when someone comes over, when a neighbour slams a car door, when kids go down the street, when we walk past a dog she decides is EVIL, etc - but she is a sheltie, or shoutie as some call them, and (2) standing to be brushed - she just flops over onto her side or belly!

[maxs_mommy]

Jean, Max used to be a barker and we replaced the barking with "go see" which for him meant "go look out the window". Once he figured out what "it" was he wasn't keen to bark at it anymore. Might work with Maggie? Dunno, just a thought.

[emmas_mom]

I tried showing her the source of each sound, when possible, but it doesn't seem to help. Her reaction is very specific - for example, the neighbour has SIX vehicles (yes, six - though only two people live there), and she only reacts to ONE of the cars when the driver slams the door. And my kitchen - there is ONE cupboard that she reacts to if I close the door when she is in another room, the other cupboards (all the same).....nothing. And, no, the cupboard that sets her off does not contain any food - just mugs and glasses. Mags is a short girl, so not sure she can see out of any windows that would give her a view of street traffic etc (which is probably a good thing); I do take her outside to show her no one is at the door when she goes ape-sh*t at a car door slamming.

[emmas_mom]

Oh, Amanda - an idea for a challenge - I've been watching Heather's and Emily's videos (on facebook) on heel, having their dogs right by their sides left and right, etc - I am SOOOOOO impressed. I would love to see some sort of challenge based on something like that as I have no luck making Mags understand about turning to face the same direction as me when she sits, and limited success getting her to consistently walk at my side instead of three feet behind.