How to teach your dog leave
The leave command is great to teach! You will use it all the time! In the house around food, clothes, shoes… Out and about with rubbish and animal poo. So lets get into how to teach your dog leave!
What you’ll need
- A quiet room/place with little to no distractions (to start with)
- Small tasty treats* (optional)
- Clicker** (optional)
- Patience
- Praise
How to
- First offer your dog a treat and say ‘take it’ and let your dog take the treat.
- Now hold a treat in your hand with your fist closed around it.
- Your dog will try and get the treat, licking your hand, nudging with their nose.
- Don’t say anything and patiently wait for your dog to back off from your hand.
- As soon as they back off, click, open your hand and say take it, then praise.
- Continue with steps 1-5 until they are actually making the choice to leave the treat consistently.
- Now your dog has the hand of it we will add the cue word ‘leave’.
- Hold the treat in your fist and as soon as your dog begins backs off say ‘leave’ in a gentle tone, and click and treat.
- Repeat this until they associate the word ‘leave’ with backing away from the treat.
- To take it up a notch, you can begin to practice with the treat on your open palm.
- Do the same as before but if they try to take the treat simply close your hand, wait for them to back away and open your hand again.
- This time though reward with a treat from your other hand, so they don’t associate leaving with getting the thing they leave as their reward.
- Continue practicing, slowly upping the ‘difficulty’. i.e put the treat on the floor, work up to using their dinner.
Important notes:
- Make practices short but regular! If a training session is to long your dog will get bored and the skill will become weaker.
- Clicker: Timing is everything, click to early and they wont understand their being asked to leave to food.
- Voice: same as the clicker with timing and make sure your voice is happy.
Any questions on how to teach your dog leave? Don’t hesitate to ask!
*Please note you don’t have to use treats while training, you can use nothing or a toy.
**Please note that you don’t have to use a clicker while training you can just use your voice, but make sure your voice is happy.