Teaching a reliable ‘leave’

Set your dog up for success by starting this exercise at a distance and in an environment that is super easy and non distracting for your dog.

Your dog doesn’t need to fail to learn. In fact, errorless learning will provide much quicker success. Plus, this ensures your dog doesn’t get frustrated by the learning process and instead builds confidence and a positive association with training

Remember training with your dog should always be fun, for the both of you.

General training guidelines:

Hold treats on your flat hand way above, and to the side of your dog’s head.
Wait for the dog to look away from the treats and at you. Click or mark, and reward/ feed a treat.
Repeat until your dog reliably looks away from your hand
Now you are ready to add the cue ‘leave/ it’.
Say the cue the second your dog looks at your hand and when he/ she looks away from the food on your open hand, mark, then treat.
Repeat five times at the same height.
Then lower your hand cm by cm (I suggest keeping a distance of 1/2m from your dog to begin with); each time asking your dog to ‘leave’ when the dog looks at your hand. Eventually placing your flat hand holding the food on the floor.

You can then start working on placing food directly on the floor, generalise the behaviour to different locations and objects to leave and so forth.

ALSO

Say the cue gently; this isn’t about scaring your dog into obeying but instead building trust that if they ‘leave’ something because you’ve asked them to, it will be worthwhile for them.

Training duration should be depending on the age and learning experience of your dog. Short durations with some rest afterwards generally works well for most dogs.

Always give your dog an option to opt out of the training.