I've been trying to teach Holly "leave it" this week (although I don't actually say anything, I want it to be somewhat default) because she has a habit of breaking heel in class so she can go and get any food she spots dropped on the floor (she is very food motivated).
So I started wanting her to look me in the eye before picking the food off the ground and giving it to her. She watches me put the food down but has to look at me before she gets rewarded.
I figured that I want her concentrating on
me not the food to stop her breaking the heel (it would be no good if she broke the heel to stare at the food, so I don't really want her looking at it).
This was really hard at first for Holly, I could see the effort it took her to rip her eyes away from the food (she would just quickly glance at me at first)
, but now she can do it fine.
Then I put the food on the floor and gave some simple commands (eg, sit, down, spin) with the food within my reach so I could cover it if she tried to eat it. This was to teach her that she still has to do commands even when there is food on the ground in front of her. Once she could do this and I could trust her not to eat the food we moved on.
So then I put food on the ground, she watches me put it down, but I don't actually say "leave it" or anything, she just now knows that if I put the food down (rather than giving it to her) she cannot have it. Then we started heeling past it (I practice heel at home without a leash, but maybe some dogs would need a leash at first for this). The first time she stopped and stared at the food as we walked past until I softly called her and then she cought up to me
. So then I started moving the food closer to the heel path. Now she has to practically step over it
, she will glance at it and sometimes slow down a little, but she doesn't stare at it anymore (or eat it)
The only problem with the heeling was that Paris came in and started eating the food off the ground
, but I guess that's good practice for Holly to ignore other dogs eating around her when she isn't alloed to eat the food herself.
Next I'm going to start planting the food with Holly out of the room to see if she really is getting a default "leave it" and wont go for stray food when she is supposed to be doing other stuff. We also have to try more tempting food (we've only been using kibble, although Holly seems to value all food the same).
We've only been working on this for about 4 or 5 days so I think she's doing pretty good so far. The test will be in two days when she has class to see if her heelwork has improved
, she was shocking last week, that's why we started working on this
Also, I would welcome any other suggestions for stopping her going after stray food. I've been making this up as I go along so I don't know if it will actually work, but it makes sense to me.
He was sooo cute!
