The Importance of a Good "Leave It"

The snow from the massive snow storm is starting to melt, but it can still be slippery out there. Floors and stairs inside can also become slick from snow that gets tracked inside on your shoes. While you’re out with your puppy in training during this time of year, one cue can mean the difference between staying on your feet and falling to the ground.

 

That cue is “leave it.”

 

SSD Elwood’s puppy raiser, Kelly Slabonik, knows the value of a good “leave it.” As she and Elwood were walking down the stairs at work, clicking and treating, one of Elwood’s treats fell out of his mouth and rolled down the stairs. Kelly immediately said, “Leave it.”

 

Instead of lunging down the stairs and possibly taking Kelly down with him, Elwood continued to walk calmly by her side. When they reached the step with the treat, he waiting while Kelly picked it up.

 

No one fell down the stairs. No one got hurt.

 

And Elwood got a jackpot of treats to reinforce his excellent behavior!

 

All of our puppies in training start learning “leave it” soon after they join their puppy raisers. It’s one of the more difficult behaviors for a dog to learn and needs to be reinforced constantly.

 

We start training “leave it” by holding a piece of dog food in a closed hand in front of the puppy. We click and treat when the puppy ignores the closed hand and makes eye contact with their raiser. Once the puppy is consistently doing this behavior, we make it harder by holding the food in an open hand, again clicking and treating when the puppy ignores the food.

 

We continue to make the behavior harder by putting the food in different places, such as on the floor, on a coffee table, or on a chair. We use different types of food and objects. The dogs practice walking past food on the floor, table, etc., both on and off leash. And then we work on ignoring food that falls to the ground in front of them.

 

We also train our dogs not to lunge after treats that fall out of their mouth. Dropped treats are lost treats. This is especially important for when the dog is working with their partner. We don’t want the dog to injure their partner because they were chasing after a treat.

 

Do you have a “leave it” story about your service dog or dog in training? Feel free to share it in the comments!

Irwin: Sitting Tall

SSD Irwin has been working on his “sit.” His down-stay had become so automatic that he stopped sitting on cue every time. To fix this, Donna started cuing him to sit every chance she got. He caught on quickly, and loves to turn it into a game whenever they’re training! Donna would put Irwin into a down-stay on the deck and then hide. Then she’d call Irwin to “come,” and he comes bounding over with enthusiasm to find her. If he sits on cue, he gets a jackpot of treats. Look at how tall he sits, like he’s trying to stretch up as high as possible.

In addition to working on the hand signal and verbal cue for sit, Donna has added some additional challenges for Irwin. When giving the verbal cue, sometimes she’ll say it in a normal voice, sometimes in a whisper, and sometimes she’ll just mouth the word “sit.” This is great practice because you never know how you’re going to be able to deliver a cue in a real world situation.

Irwin loves chewing on sticks, and since his puppy raisers have an orchard, he’s in stick-chewing heaven! However, he isn’t always allowed to play with sticks, so Donna has been using them for “leave it” practice. After they pruned some of the trees, she brought some branches back to the house, and she and Irwin walked around and through the sticks and branches, using the “leave it” cue. He’s gotten really good at it! He can now walk through the orchard without dragging branches and sticks to chew and play with. He can also walk through Donna’s flower beds without biting at the plants and flowers or picking up sticks, pine cones, or pebbles.

Irwin has been supervising Donna when she works in her flower beds and vegetable garden. He goes with her and Donna asks him to sit-stay for a good five minutes before she cues a down-stay. She started having him sit for an extended time so that “down” doesn’t become his default position, regardless of the cue he actually received. Sometimes Irwin gets to play with a toy or a bone and other times he just hangs out in an extended down-stay. Donna keeps him fairly close to her in case she needs to cue him to “leave it.” As a power treat reward, Irwin has been getting sweet potato skins and banana chips, which he loves to crunch. 

In May, Irwin started swimming! Donna and Jim have a pond, and Irwin used to be very hesitant about swimming, even though he saw Judge paddling around. Then one day at the end of May, he went it, and before he knew it, he was doing a high stepping doggie paddle! He stretches his head up as high as he can and his legs look like he’s marching. Now that he enjoys swimming, it has become his reward at the end of the day when they get back from the orchard. With practice, he learned how to doggie paddle more efficiently, and he no longer high steps in the water. 

However, now that the pond is a big reward for him, Donna has also been using it for “leave it” practice. They’ve been working on Irwin’s behaviors while he’s off leash. She and Irwin have been walking the perimeter of the pond with Irwin off leash. He’ll stay right next to her and ignore the pond, as long as she clicks and treats. He also knows where there’s a dead toad in the driveway that had gotten run over, and he can walk by it without going toward it to sniff or pick it up. He also discovered a dead dove by the fence one day while they were playing ball. When he spotted it, he jumped back and then sniffed at it. When Donna said “leave it,” he chose to pick up the ball and return rather than go after the bird.

When he’s off leash, he has also learned that he doesn’t always get to go in the ATV. Irwin watches Jim leave in the morning, and then looks at Donna, who cues him to stay. Irwin looks back at Jim driving up the road to the orchard, but he chooses to stay rather than run after the ATV.

Although Irwin is growing up and learning lots of new skills and behaviors, he can still get into mischief. He chewed the stuffing out of a second pillow bed! After cleaning up the mess, Donna put him in his crate. After a little while, she let him out, but told him to stay in the mudroom rather than joining her and Jim while they had coffee. Irwin stayed in the mudroom, even though his usual routine is to join them. By their second cup of coffee, however, they invited him to join them, and Irwin got his usual belly rub.

Irwin Learns and Helps to Teach

SSD Irwin has been working extra hard on two cues: “heel” and “leave it.” When Irwin has finished learning “heel,” he will be able to swing his back legs around until he’s standing to the left side of his handler. “Heel” is a useful cue, and it’s one of the cues that all of our dogs learn.

Irwin is still learning “heel,” and Donna is using a heel box to help him. He puts his front feet on the box, and then Donna clicks and treats him for moving his back feet to the right. We start teaching “heel” by clicking and treating the dog for putting their front paws on the heel box. Then we watch for the back legs to move toward the right. If the dog is just standing there, we may take a step to the right, which often prompts the dog to move in the same direction. As soon as we see the back legs move, we click and treat.

“When Irwin first started doing the heel box, he got right up,” says Donna. “I waited for those back legs to move, and move they did—just like a donkey kicking his back legs up and out!” Now Irwin will hop up on the heel box and move his back legs several steps. He’s not quite in the heel position yet, but he’s getting there. Watch the video of him and Donna working on “heel.”

If you’ve been reading our blog, you’ve probably heard us say over and over that “leave it” is one of the most important cues our dogs learn. It’s true! For example, if the dog’s partner drops pills on the floor, the dog will need to ignore them until they can be cleaned up, which could be hours, especially if their partner isn’t able to clean them up themselves. Check out this video of Irwin practicing “leave it.” Donna surrounds him with all of his favorite things: a water dish, toys, bones with peanut butter in them, and kibble. And then an unexpected distraction shows up. Watch how Irwin reacts.

He handled that extra distraction (family dog Hunter) pretty well, didn’t he? Nice training session, Irwin!

We like this video because it shows a training session in the heat of the moment. If you focused on Irwin when you watched the video, watch it again, but this time, focus on Donna. What does she do when Irwin stands up?

“In the rush of things, I use both verbal and hand cues when it should be one or the other,” says Donna. We train our puppy raisers to use either the verbal cue or the hand signal, but not both at the same time. If the dog always gets both cues, we don’t know which one he’s reacting to, and so we don’t know if he actually knows both cues.

However, this is the perfect example of what often happens in the heat of the moment. During training sessions or out in public, things happen quickly, and our puppy raisers need to react quickly, giving cues and reacting automatically. Sometimes we unthinkingly use two cues, and sometimes we use the wrong cue for what we want the dog to do. The amazing thing is that it gets easier with practice, and often the dogs are able to figure out what we wanted them to do, even when we accidentally say the wrong cue.

Dogs aren’t the only ones who learn in each training session. The puppy raiser learns just as much. With each training session, puppy raisers become better clicker trainers. It’s always a learning experience, especially for puppy raisers who have raised multiple dogs. Each dog is different and the training techniques that worked for one dog might not work on the next one. Our puppy raisers are constantly learning.

Irwin and Donna recently went shopping at Walmart on the same day as the local rest home. Because Irwin is still a puppy, he sometimes pulls ahead, and since Donna knew that the store would be full of people using canes, walkers, and wheelchairs, she decided to use the comfort trainer so she would have more control over him. At the store, there was one gentleman who seemed especially curious about Irwin and followed them around with his cart. When he saw Donna giving Irwin a treat, he said, “So that muzzle he has on doesn’t interfere with him getting treats.”

Although she was busy shopping, Donna took the time to explain about service dog training and that a comfort trainer is very different from a muzzle. The comfort trainer fits around the dog’s head, but it doesn’t inhibit their movement in any way. They can eat, drink, bark, and more with a comfort trainer on. It’s merely a tool to give handlers more control over the dog, which can be especially helpful for partners who may not have the strength to prevent their dog from pulling ahead.

After Donna talked with the gentleman for a while, he said, “He [Irwin] sure seems happy to be shopping and watching you.” He and Irwin had a nice greeting that ended with Irwin giving him puppy kisses on his hand. An excellent end to an education opportunity!

Leave It: Anywhere, Anytime

SSD Judge fell asleep less than three feet away from his favorite foods. That’s pretty impressive all by itself, but what’s even more amazing is that he could have easily grabbed that carrot cake or corned beef. He chose not to.

Judge’s “leave it” skills didn’t appear overnight. His puppy raiser, Donna, has been working with him from the start. She began by working on down-stays. When Judge was a young puppy, she and her husband used baby gates to keep him in certain areas, but then they progressed to using the down-stay to keep him from crossing the doorway. They also trained him to “go to bed,” meaning he will go to a designated blanket and lay down. They used both of these skills to keep him in certain rooms.

Once Judge had mastered the skill of not crossing the threshold without his puppy raisers’ permission, they decided to challenge him even more by adding a “leave it.” She asked Judge to “down” and “stay” in the doorway of one room and then placed food on a plate in the other room. The food was within his reach, if he had chosen to get up. Donna then walked away and disappeared from his line of sight, although she could still see him. Then she walked back to him, clicked and treated him, as long as he didn’t break his down-stay. Gradually, she increased the amount of time before she returned until Judge could hold his down-stay and leave it for over 30 minutes! He was even able to relax enough to fall asleep.

(Please note that before Donna started putting Judge in a down-stay and leaving the room, she had already spent many weeks working to perfect his down-stay. If you’re going to try this with your dog, start small, and don’t add additional temptations, such as food, until your dog has a solid down-stay. You can start by just asking your dog for a “down” and gradually increase the time he stays there. Then you can start adding distractions – clap, do jumping jacks, walk around your dog, walk a few steps backward, leave the room and come back, ring the doorbell, etc. Then you may be able to start adding the food temptation.)

Donna has also placed food, paper items, toys, bird eggs, etc. on plates throughout the house and outside. She worked with him on and off leash to get him to ignore the things on the plates, and if he went toward one of the plates, she used the “leave it” cue. (At this point, Judge already knew the cue “leave it.” If your dog doesn’t know the verbal cue yet, don’t use it.)

When Judge ignores the plates or listens to the cue “leave it,” Donna picks up the plate and treats him with one of his favorite food items. For example, if he leaves a plate of his favorite salad greens, Donna will pick up the plate and give him a piece of salad greens by hand. That way, Judge learns that the good things in life come from his handler, not from the floor.

One time, Donna forgot to pick up the plates outside, and Judge started making a beeline for them. She quickly said “leave it!” and to her amazement, he did! He stopped as soon as he heard the cue.

Judge’s next challenge is to learn to generalize the cue “leave it,” so he can do it anywhere, not just at home. Soon he’ll have no problem walking through a busy cafeteria and ignoring any food on the floor.