(whimsical music)
- Leave it.
Teaching your puppy the leave it command
can be a great way to avoid some dangerous
and disgusting situations,
and ladies, it works on husbands, too.
Today, I'm gonna teach you a few different ways
to teach your puppy a leave it command.
My name is Kayl McCann.
- And I'm Ken, the Cookie Monster, Steepe.
- Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
(gentle music) (dog barking)
Now, when I'm teaching my dog how to leave something,
I like to teach it in a bunch of different games
and exercises, and the very first thing
that I'm gonna do is build value
for listening to the word leave it.
So, I'm gonna play a little game here
where I'm gonna put a couple pieces of food in my hand,
and I'm going to offer it in an open hand for her to decide
as to whether she's gonna steal it from my hand
or whether she's gonna have enough self control
that she'll leave the food alone.
And the way I'm gonna train her to develop that self control
is that if she tries to steal it out of my hand
without my permission,
I'm simply gonna close my hand in a fist,
and I'm gonna take the opportunity of getting the food
complete away from her,
and then once I see that she's sort of
backed off a little bit,
I'm gonna go ahead and open my hand once again,
and I'm gonna keep working this
until my hand can be open with the food exposed
and my dog is showing enough self restraint
that she's not going to go after the food.
Now, once your dog has mastered that,
you can make it a little bit more advanced.
So, rather than having the food being held in your hand
where you can easily take it away from your dog,
you can progress to having the distraction on the floor.
And this is gonna be really similar
to when your dog sees other distractions on the floor.
Maybe you're taking him for a walk
and there's garbage on the ground,
whatever it might be.
Lots of times we drop things on the floor
and we want the dog to not touch it.
So, she's in a down position, that's fine.
She could be sitting or standing.
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna place the food on the floor
a foot or so away from her.
But I'm gonna keep my hand nearby
because if she tries to steal the food
before I see any self composure from her,
I'm gonna quickly cover the food with my hand
so she can't get at it.
Once she sort of backs herself off,
I'm going to expose the food to her once again,
and then we'll give it another try.
So, it looks a little bit like this.
(quirky upbeat music)
So, I'm gonna pull my hand away a bit.
Yes,
good girl.
Yes,
good.
So, she's making the decision to not go after the food.
Yes, so I'm going to mark the correct behavior
with the word yes, and then I'm gonna move the food to her,
so I'm not gonna allow her to go after it.
Now, she did the first part really quickly,
so that might have been hard to see.
I had to cover the food almost immediately
because she was gonna steal it.
So, I'm gonna try it again and see what happens.
Good girl, yes.
Yes.
So she's making great choices here,
so I'm gonna make it a little harder.
So, she's trying to steal it, so I'm pulling it away.
Yes,
good girl.
Yes,
good girl.
Yes, good girl, okay, good girl.
So, she made some really good choices there.
So, again, I'm looking at the food,
but I'm also watching my dog,
and I'm watching to see what she's thinking about.
And if I think that she's gonna go after the food,
I need to be super, super fast.
Don't be afraid to make more space
between the dog and the distraction,
or maybe use a lower
value distraction so that the exercise isn't as difficult,
and then slowly work your way up to making it
just as hard as I'm doing now.
Now, before we move on to the last phase,
I'm gonna show you a tip that you can do
with dogs that are struggling with this exercise.
Maybe they're really distracted by the food,
and they're making a lot of errors.
You know when we're taking the dog to do something new,
our goal is to set them up for success
without them making a lot of mistakes.
So, I have a leash attached to my dog's collar,
and what I'm gonna do is the same exercise,
but I'm going to keep the leash in my hand.
So, if she decides to grab the food
when she's not supposed to,
I can stop her by pulling back on the leash.
Now, my goal before I reward her,
ooh, there's a freebie, that's a good distraction.
My goal before I reward her
is to be able to have slack in the leash
so that she's making her own decision
not to go after the food.
So, I'm gonna keep the leash loose initially,
I'm gonna put the food, now she decided to get up.
See, I pulled back on the leash.
There, my leash is loose.
Yes,
good girl.
My leash is loose.
Yes,
good girl.
So, if she decided to go for the food,
I would simply pull back on the leash.
That's my baby.
Pull back on the leash.
Yes.
Very good girl.
Yes, excellent.
And once she's on a loose leash
and she's showing her own self-restraint,
I'm gonna yes and reward my dog very generously.
Now, you may have noticed on the last exercise
that I was not using any verbal commands
other than the word yes.
I wasn't telling her to leave it.
I was simply letting her figure it out,
and that was because I was trying to build up the behavior.
What we're gonna do now is transition to a phase
where we actually are going to be using
the command leave it
and showing her exactly what I want her to do
when she hears it.
We're gonna be using the method of luring.
So, again for this exercise,
you are gonna need several pieces of food of high value
to teach your dog to leave it when you ask them to.
Now as well as treats,
you're also gonna need some type of object or distraction
to use in order to practice the leave it command.
So today, I've gotten a Tupperware container,
and I've filled it with lots of kibble and cookies.
And I've poked a bunch of air holes in the top
so that all the stinky smell of the treats
can come out through the top of the canister.
And that's gonna help her be a little bit distracted.
So, I'm gonna place that here.
I have some high value treats in my hand,
and I'm gonna use that to teach her to leave it alone.
Now, I'm gonna let Bee go ahead
and investigate this distraction.
While she's paying attention to it,
I'm gonna have my food ready,
I'm gonna tell her to leave it.
I'm gonna lure her attention
away from the distraction and back onto me.
So, I'm gonna let her go and check it out.
Hey, Bee, what's that?
Check that out.
(upbeat music)
Leave it.
Yes.
Good girl.
So what I'm looking for her to do
is move in my direction in order to get the reward.
So, leave it means
stop looking at what you're looking at
and pay attention to me.
So, let's go ahead and try that again.
What's that thing?
Leave it.
Yes.
Good girl.
So, it's very important that I have correct timing.
I'm going to say, "Leave it," followed one second later
by showing her my reward
and pulling her away from that distraction.
Now, you'll notice when I'm practicing this with my dog
that I'm making a special effort to keep my leash loose.
I don't wanna say leave it
and drag her away from distraction.
This is all about teaching my dog
how to make her own choice.
So, I'm gonna say the word,
and then I'm gonna use my food
to help her make that decision.
And once she does, I'm gonna reward from there.
My leash is simply a backup plan.
So, I'm gonna show you one more time.
Okay, go check it out.
Good girl.
Leave it.
Yes.
Good girl.
So, that was a good example of making sure I didn't
yes too soon.
She almost decided to go back to that distraction
a second time,
and it would have been really bad if I had yes
and gave her a treat right there,
because she hadn't quite fully committed
to paying attention to me.
So, I just caught myself in the nick of time.
It's very important that I'm looking for commitment
from my dog before rewarding.
And I better do it one more time
to make sure I don't end up on such a lousy one.
(laughing) You beat me to it.
Get it, get it, get it.
Leave it.
Yay!
There she goes.
Good girl.
And of course I'm gonna reward generously
as my dog makes the decision to move towards me.
Now, that I've shown her what the word leave it means,
I'm now gonna start putting this in a normal
context exercise.
So, you know, a place that's most common to use
the leave it command is when you're taking for a walk.
So, I'm gonna walk her towards this distraction,
and we're gonna pretend this is something like
a piece of garbage or a chicken bone,
or a piece of rabbit poo, or something that
I don't want my dog to touch.
When she's interested in going to see it,
I'm going to then say leave it,
and then I'm gonna lure her attention one second away.
What I'm also gonna to do
is actually physically turn around
and go the opposite direction with her.
And this is a technique that we'd like you to practice
when you're out on the street with your own dogs.
Good.
Leave it.
Yes.
Good girl.
Good.
Yes.
Now, the goal for my leave it command is not
to let my dog go to a distraction
and then call her away from it.
My goal is that I can use the leave it to prevent my dog
from getting into a possibly dangerous situation.
So, I'm gonna test her now.
What I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna use my leave it command proactively.
So, my goal is that I can say it early enough
that Bee doesn't even think about going
to get distracted by that item.
So, you'll notice my command is going to be much earlier.
Now, if I'm able to say leave it
and turn away from that distraction,
I'm gonna reward her very generously
from the treats in my hand.
So, hopefully it will look something like this.
Let's go.
Good girl, let's go.
Leave it.
Yes.
Good girl, let's go.
Yes, let's go.
Good girl, let's go.
Leave it.
Yes, good girl.
Let's go.
Yay.
Let's go.
Good girl.
Let's go, leave it, good.
Sit, leave it.
Yes.
Leave it, good, leave it.
Now, most often when you use the leave it command
is gonna be in situations where your dog
has already become distracted,
and the goal is that the leave it
prevents the dog from actually following through
and going right up to that distraction.
In a perfect world, though, what you're hoping for
is something you just saw a moment ago,
that I can anticipate a potential distraction,
and that I can use my leave it command
to actually prevent my dog from disengaging from me
in the first place.
So, leave it can be used to prevent potential distractions,
and it also can be used
to prevent your dog from getting towards
whatever they're trying to get to.
Now, when you're training this, it's very important
that the reward that you used in your hand
your dog feels is higher value
than whatever you're using as a distraction.
So, today I was using high value tuna treats in my hand
and I just had boring kibble in the box below.
So, that it's more valuable to come towards me.
The second thing that's really important
is that the place that you practice this for the first time
needs to be controlled and not very distracting.
So, I wouldn't do this at the park
with lots going on for the very first time
because it probably won't go very well.
Start in a quiet place with not much going on
so that your dog does it correctly
more than they do it incorrectly.
And once you see that the dog is understanding the behavior,
take the show on the road, build more distractions,
make a harder distraction when you're using it that way,
but it is important that you start with success,
make it very easy, and then go from there.
Now, if this is your first time on the channel,
make sure you hit that subscribe button.
We publish brand new videos every single week
to help you have a better behaved
four-legged family member.
See that video beside me?
It's a video about teaching your dog
to walk on a loose leash.
So, you're probably gonna wanna check that out.
For now, my name is Kayl,
this is my little pup Beeline.
Bye for now. (upbeat music)