" LEAVE IT " - Page 3

If  you want to teach leave it;  fooey, it does not matter;  use any terminology you want but set your puppy up for success, every time.  In this case that sounds like that means having him on leash every time until he learns what you are trying to teach him,  whether that is leave it, or anything else.  And are you praising  him profusely when he does leave it;  praise him with a piece of chicken or cheese, that will stay in his mind maybe.  But each time you give the command at this stage and age you are testing  him to see if he will do it each time and at 6 months old I think that is alot to ask.  YES, I do expect them to respond but until he is totally trained  you cannot expect him to act and respond like a trained adult dog;  he is only a puppy and a boy puppy at that.  Good luck  Nan

 Great posts...thanks so much everyone...

       TessJ10...Instead of 'out ' I use' drop' for let go of it....??? Yes, and 'leave it' means "come away from it ".....

             Everyone...     I do set him up and give lots of praise and treats ......however if he catches me off guard he will go for it and at that point I'm left saying ' leave it ' and  'drop it '......and it's too late by then. 

                 I have never leash corrected him except to pull him away from whatever he is going toward. I think some are correct in saying that he is not properly respecting me. He wears a nylon buckle collar and is usually on a retractable 20ft lead....????? I think not such a good idea right now?

              Should I give the leash correction while he is chomping away at whatever he just snatched up with one good correction and then let it go at  that??? What word is used at that point....bad dog..lol
          
                                                                         Ruger1

Rlhar made a good point, unless you can follow through with the command right there and make the correction immediately, then imo dont make it at all.

When I am training puppies and I give a command, they MUST do it. There is no option on their part to choose. And I try and give the command only once, if they dont do what i ask, Im on them right there. The correction is swift and quick. I have found this to be effective especially when the dog gets older and knows that if they dont do it right then, they know I will be following up with the correction.

This technique will also work for happy commands you give. If I use the command to "find" and the puppy goes out to find and comes back without anything, I send them back out (and I go if need be) to help puppy find it. Again puppy doesnt get the option to fail or "choose" to do what you ask. They must comply.

I say leave it. It works for me. If a dog comes in that wont respond to it, then I just pick another word. Remus is not even affected by No. I dont know what his previous owner did to overuse that command. So I now use Nein.

I hate to say it but its just like raising kids. If they dont know that you will say what you mean, they will take advantage of you every time.

"Should I give the leash correction while he is chomping away at whatever he just snatched up with one good correction and then let it go at that??? What word is used at that point...."

Well, you don't let it go at that if he doesn't let go and keeps on chomping (lol).  And as to the word, say Leave It again (if that's the command you're using), don't say something else.  You're teaching "Leave it," so that's what you say.  You can say, NO, leave it.  That might help.  But he has to know that he has to give up whatever he grabbed.  When he does, big praise.  People often forget to make the praise as big as, or bigger than, the correction.

Ideally you'll be alert and see him going for something and tell him Leave It BEFORE he can grab it.  If he moves away from it, big praise! GOOD BOY!!  So work on being more alert and getting to him before he can grab it.  Set him up.  Go out in the yard first without him and look for the stuff you know he'll go for.  You can even drop food or things on the ground.  He must learn "Leave it" means leave WHATEVER you tell him to, even if it's a bowl of his own kibble, or a raw chicken leg - doesn't matter, you're teaching something here.  You say Leave it, you mean it. 

The cat stuff is often irrestible to dogs and they find it worth the beating to try and sneak the stuff.  ICK.

...I just read back through the post again and I realized you already answered my question.....

                                                              Command and Correction =  Short and Sharp

                                                              
........I hate to change the command I use at this point, but I would have preferred phooey.....oh well...

                Leave it = Get away from it
                Drop it = get it out of your mouth
               
  But what about " I did not leave it" " I am eating it" and" will not drop it out of my mouth"..=????

                                                     Ruger1

 we are posting at the same time ....    LOL....this is Great stuff
                                    
                                         Ruger1

I taught my first GSD both "leave it" and "drop it".

I started training him from a young puppy.  If he'd go to pick up something he shouldn't have, like a shoe or an article of clothing, a toy, or whatever, I was watching him like a hawk.  I'd give him a sharp "Leave it".  Said quickly and sharply, "leave it" can sound like one word.  I used it whenever he'd get near a people food dish, or whatever the case might be.

If he got something before I noticed that he was getting it, then I would use the drop it.  By the time I'd had him a month (and yes, he was on leash most of the time in the house, for that very reason), he would leave most things alone without a command, drop things if he had something that he shouldn't, and leave his dish at feeding time if I told him to.  "Leave it" for him and I was a command that meant that he should 'leave' whatever he was messing with or eating, and 'drop it' meant exactly that.  DROP IT.  I never harshly corrected him for failing to yield to the command; he was four months old when I got him and much too young for anything of the sort, so I used redirection...of course, he did respect me and he didn't try to sneak around or pull things before he got caught.  If he had an untoward interest in a shoe, I would give him one of his toys instead.

One month, and the commands "Leave it" and "Drop it" were cemented in his brain...Sure came in handy a few times.

As for what command to use for teaching the actions, I'd have to say that it's unfair to call people who use "Leave it" knuckleheads, Phil.  You are an accomplished trainer, yes.  But for the average pet owner, a word that they can remember quickly, and get out when it needs to be said, is what matters.  If you want to use German commands, they need to be fluent, so you can remember them when you need to use them...Someone who is just learning, and doesn't speak German may not remember what the word is they need, and not give the command at the right time, and lose the effectiveness of it for that very reason.  So if the word you choose to use works for you, you are alert and get it out at the right time, then what does it matter what word is used?  For example, dog goes for the roasted chicken on the counter.  You need to tell him to leave it, but you can't, for the life of you, remember what that German command is...

My feeling on it is that if you find a word that works for you, use it.  I'm not the expert trainer that you are, but still, if you can get the point across and the dog understands, isn't that what's important?

OK, I'm off here.  I broke my own rule...I didn't plan to post here anymore.  So I'm back off here and back to my world.  Have a good one, folks, and Good Luck, Ruger 1.  Stick with it, and your boy will get it.

Crys

Guys, the word is PFUI. Not phooey, which is what you say to a person when you are disgusted/disappointed. (Sorry, but phooey on that spelling!!!)

February 4, 2009   Phoo, pfui, and phooey Q: I recently saw “phewey” used on Twitter to imply “oh, darn!” I don’t think it’s a word. When my daughter says “phew,” she’s relieved that something has ended or never happened. Am I right that the Twitter posting person (who is NOT a twit) should have used “fooey” or “phooey”? A: The word the twitterer should have used is “phooey.” The spelling “phewey” definitely doesn’t fill the bill. “Phew” would rhyme with “few” instead of “foo.” Believe it or not, “phooey” has a respectable lineage as an English interjection, and its beginnings may go back to the 1600s. The Oxford English Dictionary says the expression “phoo” was first recorded in 1672, and defines it as “expressing contemptuous rejection, cursory dismissal (of a proposition, idea, etc.), disagreement, or reproach.” The first person to use it in writing, as far as we know, was George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who along with several collaborators wrote a satirical play called The Rehearsal, staged in 1671 and published in 1672. The quote: “Phoo! that is to raise the character of Drawcansir.”