Dogs, especially puppies are notorious for putting things in their mouths and often eating them which is why teaching a dog the “leave it” command is so very important. Back when I was in puppy school in Germany, our teacher taught us the “leave it” command and we found it pretty easy to master using her technique.
To teach the command using my method requires six tools:
- The human needs a reward/distractor. We use food, but if your dog is into tennis balls or a favorite toy, that would work just as well.
- For training you need some items your dog will want to ingest, maybe food, a scrunchy, whatever isn’t too large but you know they will attempt to grab. ***This way of teaching won’t work on large items or things like cow pies, you will see why a bit later in my post.***
- A human foot with a shoe is very important!
- Your dog should be on a short least, three to four feet long.
- A good voice to say “leave it” and then offer lots of loving praise.
- The dog who needs to learn the “leave it” command. Bailie was horrible about eating everything she found as a puppy. She ate anything and everything, so she desperately needed to learn this command!
Training can start in the house or out on the road, wherever you think would work better for you. Lay out the items ahead of time, grab your treats or toy, and get the dog walking on leash like nothing is up.
Whoa! What is on the road here? Salami? I want it! Let your dog see it, but don’t let them get too near.
Get that human foot ready to hide this wonderful item lying on the road.
Don’t be shy, step right on it, cover it completely, so the dog doesn’t see it anymore. At the same time let out a firm “Leave it!” command.
Immediately get out the treats or toy and reward your dog giving her a ton of praise. At this point, the item the dog wanted to eat has “disappeared”, and they are happy and distracted by the treats or toy.
Get back to the walk and the dog should ignore the item on the ground, if not, repeat the procedure. It is best to use a small area and stage the scene using small items when you first start to teach the command. Always choose items your dog is never allowed to have or they will be confused. Do this for short periods of time over a few days and the dog should catch on. Slowly start to expand the area and eventually you can leave the “ground” items home and go with whatever happens to be lying in your path.
Bailie was not real good in her obedience class, but she was the dog most likely to eat stuff on the floor, and she was also the only dog who really mastered the “leave it” command. We hear leave it on our walks all the time, and it works 95% of the time. It can really be an important command if your dog is about to eat something dangerous! We haven’t seen it taught this way in the dog schools here, so I wanted to share this simple method with my friends. Good luck!
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excellent tutorial – it was one of the first things I taught both the boys
It is an important thing to learn.
This is also the very first thing we were taught…in exactly the way you explained it! Great tutorial, Emma!
Smileys!
Dory, Jakey, Arty & Bilbo
The dog school here didn’t teach it that way, but Bailie already had it down and was the only one!
Definitely one of the most important commands out there. It’s also a practice-for-life command, the world is filled with tempting morsels!
Very true and some things still slip into the jowls sometimes but we try to limit it.
Mom loves this. I don’t. The only thing we eat that we aren’t supposed to is goose poop! We love it and it is all over the park where we like to walk. And when the weather changes they are frozen–like little frozen snickers bars!! Delicious all year round! Mom is going to try your approach to see if we might be better listeners. She even might do it with the poop! and then wash her shoe. Thanks for the tip (not!) Emma, your doodle friend Dash.
My mom has to admit goose poop is a problem and if she found A piece she would put her shoe on it, but those blasted geese leave so much poop, we just have to walk in another spot. Bailie is nuts for goose poop, I enjoy it on occasion but used to be nuts for it too.
we do that too… and it mostly works… even when my mom has a bubble gum on her running shoe now (a good reasn to buy new ones lol). she also learnt to make hissing noises … that works too… but the people always think my mom is nuts :o)
It works well for the beginning training, often times out in real life it is too hard to put a shoe on something or too disgusting but then the leave it command should hopefully work without the shoe.
I had to teach Torrey leave it, she is way good at it too. Thankfully, there are too many weird things dogs want to eat out there.
With Bailie it was a priority, and she learned it fairly quickly.
The Leave It command has definitely been the most useful one for us. When our Husky was a puppy she found an apple core in the street and nearly choked on it! Thankfully my husband was able to pull it out of her throat. We later learned the Leave It command in puppy class and have used it ever since. It’s saved us many times!
Love & Biscuits,
Dogs Luv Us and We Luv Them
It is really important as there are so many dangers lying around. I usually only go for dead critters, but Bailie loves to try to get everything, so we hear leave it a lot on our walks and she usually does leave it.
I like your technique of stepping on the item when teaching “Leave It”. Great tips and something every dog owner should train because it comes in handy so often.
The stepping works well when staging the training or for small things along the way. For large stuff a dog needs to have learned the command or the owner needs to be wearing clown shoes!
Very helpful post. We are actually working on this with Ruby.
This technique worked really well for Bailie who eats everything she finds. Now she knows to leave it.
LOVE this training! Leave it is SUPER important for us therapy dogs, because, especially as hounds, we have our noses down a lot and when we are working in nursing homes or other facilities, there is ALWAYS dangerous stuff on the ground. Fortunately for Mom, I caught on very quickly. Chablis
Probably lots of food on the floor there too. It is important to know and use this command.
Our dog trainer taught us using that method. It works most of the time, but coyote poop is still a delicacy that is not ‘left’.
Well, some things are just too tasty to pass up, but nothing in life is 100%. We have that problem with goose poop.
Oh Emma, I cannot begin to tell you how bad Pierre needs to learn this. Of course, being a pizza bandit, I could use a bit of training myself! BOL! BOL!
I have learned to only steal stuff in the house when Mom is not looking, otherwise I need to behave and obey the command π
BTW, did you notice your name appears spelled incorrectly on the comment, Clitnton…just an fyi.
That’s a really good tutorial. And yes, this is a really important skill to teach from the very beginning.
Honey is nearly perfect with this cue now. But I also think it’s an advanced skill that needs a little maturity before mastery. It’s easy to teach a puppy to “come.” But nearly impossible to teach one to “leave it.”
At least that’s what i found when Honey swallowed first a whole pigeon and second a squeaker she freed from a toy at 3 months old.
Teaching drop it with Bailie was surprisingly easy and so important. She still messes up now and then like with goose poop but who can resist a delicacy like that. We do leave it much better than come!
I would be lost without the leave it!!!! LOL! I have had to use it SO many times!!!! I always recommend it to people as well. It can come in handy in so many different ways.
α¦ husky hugz α¦ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
We need a recording for our walks with Bailie to keep saying drop it and leave it. She listens and obeys, but keeps trying.
Mom said she better read it
Lily & Edward
Uh oh, don’t tell me you guys don’ obey the leave it command?
Those are great instructions, and I’ve never seen it taught that way either. But I’d like to try it with Luke. He’s pretty good with leave it, but if it’s something really awesome (like a tissue….LOL), he’s still not perfect. I think this would be a good method to reinforce it more.
It was the first and only way Mom learned to teach it and it works so well. The things they tried here in dog school didn’t seem to work real well, but since Bailie already had it down, Mom didn’t pay much attention to what they said to do.
Those were super good instructions and even I could follow them…NOT!
LOL! It doesn’t really work for cats!
The “leave it” command was definitely one of the very first commands we taught our pups!! I used a completely different method from the one you described, but find yours very interesting. Thanks for broadening our horizon ~ I pinned your “put your foot down on bad behavior” picture on my Pinterest board “Dog Training” π
Thank you! There are many methods I’m sure, but this one worked real well for us so far.
I teach a default leave by using impulse control games. We have a “spit it out” cue as well. π
We just have the old drop it, but it works too.
Mr. N found a DOZEN pieces of deli meat all over the ground. Who drops that much deli meat I ask you? Thankfully, he has an excellent leave it.
Awesome Mr. N! Who knows if it was tainted meat? Scary finding stuff like that lying around.
Good ‘leave it!’ Great pictures – Your friends at DogDaz Zoo
We learned Leave It differently. This method is more straightforward and very easy to do, especially when you have 2 puppies at once. Thanks!
You are right about it being easier when you have 2+ dogs because you can get our feet involved. It has worked great for us!
This is how we learned “leave it” at puppy class with Jax. He’s doing really good with it too.
Awesome! Our school here taught it differently and it didn’t seem as effective.
We didn’t work on that in obedience. And Rita is SO picky she almost never picks up anything but I should still try to teach her that just in case. Thanks for the tips!
I am not big on picking up and eating stuff on the road, but my sisters both love to, so this command is important.
Oh Emma! I hate that command because it means there is something I want and I can’t have it. But I am a good boy (when I have to be) and I’m learning to “leave it” and also to “wait.” I sit and wait very nicely for my dinner because I don’t care much about food. I have a harder time doing “wait” when it’s about going through a door. I’m just always moving faster than Twinkie and Mommie, who are both very, very old.
Mommies says thanks for the training tips, because she needs lots of them for a busy boy like me!!
I have never been real into mealtime and I eat my meals slowly and enjoy every piece of kibble. As a pup, it would take me a good fifteen minutes to eat as I took each piece of kibble out of the bowl and laid them on the floor, then went back and ate them one by one. I still sort out my food putting some on the floor and always finish last by a long time.
I will have to try that method with Aspen. Lexie and Mica learned no problem, but Aspen can be more difficult (probably a male thing).
I think it is just a personality thing. Bailie would consider the world to be a buffet table if we let her, I have never been real interested in picking up stuff and I also don’t like new treats right away, don’t always take treats from strangers. No idea why.
Mica has never been really interest in treats, and I taught t h em never to take anything from strangers. Don’t want Mica to get something poisoned. Haven’t been working on Aspen on treats from strangers, thanks.
Sounds like a good way to teach leave it.
It works really well for us. Bailie was a project, but learned pretty quickly.
This looks really simple and the Lady plans to try it with Taffy. Taffy has learned “leave it” pretty well just by on our walks and being yelled at all the time. But she thinks she leaves stuff alone just because she doesn’t want her finger down her mouth! Love Dolly
Whatever deterrent work is what matters. This worked great with Bailie who picked up everything when we first got her. We still hear leave it like a million times on a walk, but it works.
This is an awesome post and perfect for us right now as we’re training Rae. She is so curious so the “Leave it” command will be super helpful. We had no idea about the foot trick but will definitely be trying this out. Thanks again for an awesome post!
The foot trick works really well for the little ones, inside and outside the house. The earlier she learns it, the better. Good luck.
I hear “leave it” a lot when out and about with my bipeds. It is a really important command for dogs to learn.
Your method makes a lot of sense.
I rarely pick up stuff, but Bailie hears it constantly.
It’s great you give mom a break since she has to supervise Bailie constantly π
We think Bailie is having more and more mature moments, so it isn’t so bad these days.
This is a fantastic step-by-step, and a great reminder to me that I need to do some work with The Ginger Sisters on “Leave It” since Boca can find chicken bones or pizza crust within a mile radius!
Bailie is the same way. Our entire walk I listen to leave it or drop it, but it works.
Sampson learned this in puppy class, but we did it differently. We put him in a sit or down first and stayed on the floor with him. We used our hand to cover the item we wanted him to leave (only if it looked like he was going to go for it) π It worked very well for him, I would say his leave it is rock solid.
Ours is pretty good, but now and then something like goose poop mucks us up. Irresistable!
What fabulous training advice though I’m afraid the salami will get moldy before Sam gets the leave it command down pat-he’s just a tad dense. π
Well, dogs do like moldy food as well although humans find it disgusting!
Great explanation we love the leave it command and use it often.
We use it so much with Bailie!
Leave it is a very important command! That’s how we taught it too. Good explanation.
Thank you. It was a real important one for our Bailie who wanted to pick up and eat everything when she was younger.