Take it or Leave it

The “Take it or Leave it” game introduces the concept of not touching food or objects. This can be food left on a low table, food that has fallen to the floor, or even a leaf or a stick when out walking.

You will start by making a “food prison” with your hand by putting some very tasty food in your hand but keeping your hand closed. Your puppy will want a taste of this food, so let your puppy investigate your hand. Be very patient, it can take some time to show an interest.

As soon as your puppy gives up investigating for even half a second or so, or tries to make eye contact with you click and reward from the other hand.  Never reward using the treat you are trying to make your puppy leave.

When your puppy consistently starts ignoring the food in your closed hand, you are ready to move to the next stage.

Start to open your hand a little and, if your puppy leaves the food, click and reward from the other hand. You can use a secondary word such as “Take it” when you give the reward treats so your puppy does not have to guess when / which food to take or leave.

If your puppy tries to taste the food in the open hand, close your hand on the food while saying “Leave it”. Try to speak the words calmly. Do not put any pressure or emphasis on the word.

If your puppy is not trying to get a taste of the food in your hand, click and give it a reward from the other hand while saying “Take it”.

Do not try to test your puppy’s patience at that stage; we are just at the beginning of the learning curve. Reward your puppy quickly enough for choosing to leave the food, if the reward is too slowly given there’s a chance it will attempt to go for the food that we want it to leave.

I like balancing the “Leave it” with the “Take it” as I do not think it is fair for the puppy to guess when to take the food or when to leave it.

Do not give any of the food you asked the puppy to leave. The reward must come from elsewhere to avoid any confusion at this stage.

On your mat from a distance

“On your mat” promotes calmness, boundaries, and personal space for your puppy.

And what should you not forget to do from now on? Give your chosen release word when you asking your puppy to leave the mat! You do not want your puppy to start guessing when it is allowed off it!

Your puppy must understand what “On your mat” really means and not try to sit in front of you as this is often the case.

Usually, people tend to stay next to the mat, so the puppy comes to sit in front of their owner while on the mat but really what the puppy understands is to sit in front of the person.

The next step to test your puppy’s understanding is to send it to the mat while you are standing further away from the mat.

Increase the distance very slowly. Change your position relative to your puppy and the mat, and always reward on the mat, but in different places.

For a small challenge, can you walk around the mat with your puppy staying on the mat?

Decide of a release word (and use it!)

 Decide of a release word (and use it!)

Let’s review your current communication with your puppy. I guess when you want your puppy to sit you are giving it a “Sit” command. But how does your puppy know the exercise is over? You might sometimes give your puppy a word such as “Come” but in a lot of cases, during the day, you may not be saying anything.

Without a release command, your puppy is learning to guess when to break free. Your puppy may decide that the end of the exercise is when you move away, when you talk, or when you have given your puppy a treat. You are probably unaware your puppy is learning to guess and decide when to release itself.

This can create a lot of frustration when you start to teach the “wait” or “sit”, because, for these behaviours, you do not want your puppy to guess when to break free from a “sit” or “stay” position.

This is important: you need to decide on a consistent release command to use when you want to release your puppy from a position.

When you want your puppy to break from a position, a sit for example, give the puppy your chosen release command so it knows when it is OK to go rather than guessing/deciding for itself.

You have a lot of choices: Go/Free/Break/Of you go/OK but be consistent, always use the same one.

I use different release words for each of my dogs so I can release them independently from each other. This is especially useful when I need to control how they leave the house using the door or hop out of their crates in the car.

Watch Me

Watch Me is great for teaching your puppy to focus on you and can dramatically help with loose lead walking which you will learn soon.

I like to “capture” this behaviour. This means that as soon as the puppy is looking at me, I click and reward, try to keep eye contact with the puppy by moving a little (I avoid being too static) and reward the puppy for maintaining eye contact.

Another method is:

  • Use a small treat, show it to your puppy and then move the treat near your eyes. As soon as the puppy looks up near your eyes, click and reward. Try to consistently use the same hand and finger placement.
  • When you are starting to get good eye contact with your puppy, fade the lure but keep the same hand and finger placement. Add the “Watch me” command while the puppy does the behaviour. Ideally the click and the “Watch me” should be at the same time. Your puppy will start to associate the hand signal and the verbal cue with the behaviour.
  • When the association is good you can start using the verbal cue without the need of the physical cue, although some people choose to keep using the physical cue as well.

Avoid rewarding when your puppy is sitting directly in front of you otherwise, the puppy may misunderstand and associate the behaviour with sitting in front of you instead of watching you. This is why I tend to move a little when I train this exercise, so the puppy has fewer opportunities to sit.

If your puppy is not food-orientated, you can try this game with a toy.

Introducing Distance

Keep on playing the games you learned last week. Each week you will learn new skills, but you still need to practice the skills of the previous weeks. All those games should become second nature to you and your puppy. They are the building blocks of your training.

When you are comfortable that you can achieve the behaviours in a calm environment such as your home start increasing the distance between yourself and your puppy, and later you can also introduce a new environment. Start in a calm environment and before starting to make the exercises more difficult by gradually introducing some surrounding distractions while you are training.

Be patient, do not try to increase the difficulty too quickly. For example, move the exercise from inside your house to a calm outside environment such as your garden, then in a calm street or a park (with your puppy on a lead), and then in a busier street.

Try as much as you can to ensure the exercise will be a success. Make it easy for your puppy.

Remember you are trying to condition your puppy to love these desirable behaviours, which will help with better self-control, recalls, and on-and-off lead work.

This week, if your puppy is good at the basic “Say hello” or “Call my name once and grab my collar” games, start increasing the distance between you and your puppy within the exercise. But be careful, only increase the distance gradually.

All puppies progress at their own pace. If you are still struggling with one of the games keep to the basic, simple exercises. Avoid comparing your progression with others. There should be no pressure.

Your responsibilities as a dog owner

How have you been doing this week with your training?

Remember: Training a little bit, even just a couple of minutes, multiple times a day will bring much better results than training once a week for 30 minutes.

All the time you are currently investing in training your puppy will probably avoid a lot of headaches and stress in the future, so take the time to build a bond with your puppy now. You will be amazed. Puppies’ brains are like sponges. They learn the good, and if you are not careful the bad, so quickly!

Today, I wanted to remind you about the rules, regulations, and your responsibilities as a dog owner:

  • Your puppy must be micro-chipped
  • Your puppy must have the name and address of its owner on its collar or on a plate or disc attached to it. Telephone numbers are not compulsory but can be extremely helpful in returning your puppy should it become lost. I also include my vet’s number on the tag

It is against the law to let a dog be dangerously out of control anywhere, including within your own home, and the dog does not need to have bitten anyone to be considered dangerously out of control.

A dog can be considered dangerously out of control if it:

  • Injures someone
  • Makes someone worried that it might injure them

This is quite a broad statement as some people may feel threatened simply by a friendly dog coming to them to say hello.