Getting my dog to drop things............He wont!!!!!!!!!!!

[LottieJenkins]

He runs off with things that he isnt meant to have and then won't give them back! I either have to bang a rolled up newspaper on the table or give him a treat to get the item back! What else can I do??

Giving him a treat to give them back is EXACTLY what you should be doing! Then he learns that giving you things is a good thing. If you try and intimidate him into dropping them, you will end up with a dog who guards things aggressively.

Go over to him with a tasty treat and as he drops whatever he's got, say 'leave it' - he will eventually learn 'leave it' as a command.

will he swap for something he should have? we usually work on the swapping and in the end they don't know what they want more! :D

One they swap or give something up for a treat then practise without the swapping/treating.

He is a real hoodlum. Last week i got home and thought i had been burgled. He had got my purse off the table and shook the contents all over the sofa!!! In cases like that I put him firmly in his basket and ignore him for an hour! it works VERY effectively!!!

Jas does this, but it's usually a deliberate attempt to get the DC to chase after him

One of my dogs never used to give up precious things (socks, for example) in exchange for a treat. One time he swallowed a whole sponge rather than give it to me, resulting in an expensive operation. My husband learnt a strategy from a gundog trainer which is to get the dog to come to you and sit. You then place your foot on top of one of his paws and gradually increase the pressure (while saying "give" or "fetch") until he drops it. It sounds a little cruel to stand on the paw, but the dog learns what "give" means quickly enough and it's definitely preferable to having to operate because they've swallowed something bad. Obviously, the swapping for a treat is preferable, but if the loot is more valuable than food in the dogs eyes, the paw method is an alternative.

Lottie I wouldn't come home and punish your dog for something, he probably had no idea what he was being punished for, poor thing. It's best to never punish a dog as they don't generally understand the concept and can link it to other things instead (e.g owner coming home=bad things happen).

Instead you should prevent bad behaviour occuring in the first place (our dog is left in the kitchen while we are out, which is completely dog proof and there's nothing on the work tops). If our dog had got my purse like that, I would only have blamed myself for leaving it in her reach.

Agree with Feesh re dog proofing the area you leave your dog in when you go out. Don't set your dog up to fail. If you know he is a counter or table surfer then don't leave anything on there that will reward his behaviour.

You can clicker train a "drop" command. It is very straight forward and loads of fun for your dog. Set up a play situation with a tug toy, furry, ball on a rope, whatever. Have some awesomely high treats available. The stinker the better. Dried liver is good for this, or really mature cheddar. Sitting down play with you dog with the toy and if at some point they spontaneously drop it click and treat. Don't chase them about as this is just rewarding them for running away. If your dog doesn't spontaneously drop the toy, stop playing and making a fuss and look off into the distance like an underwear model, sooner or later your dog will drop the toy. Click and treat. Then resume the game again.

Keep playing and c&ting. Sooner or later the dog will realise that when it gobs the toy out it will get a treat AND will get to play some more with you.

Do several sessions of this before you add in the cue word, "drop" or "give".

The dog will sooner or later realise that if you stop the super fun playing and it hears the word "drop" and it lets go of the toy then it will get some food and some more play.

Make what you want the dog to do rewarding rather than unpleasant and you will have a much much more obedient dog and one that thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread, or sliced cheese.

Worked for us.

Definitely work on prevention rather than cure on this one.

If he does have something you do not want him to have DO not ever approach him. He will of course run away and then you will have a fantastic game of chase and the dog will love this.

Instantly he has something just ignore (but watch carefully!) turn your back on him and start playing with something else - doesn't matter what but preferable something he can have. Be exciting, don't let him have it, run away with it etc very soon he will forget what he has and want to play with your toy more.

The problem with treating when you want him to release things you have not given to him is that you tend to be training him that I get a treat if I pick up objects which is exactly what you do not want to happen.

I have watched many clients C&T and take items off their dog - the dog then runs off to find something else to carry!

yy minimu. I have used the clicker to train 'drop' (and 'take it') when I am initiating the game and have chosen the item to play with. However we do have good crossover of the command now so when random undesirable objects (like sticks on a walk) are picked up and she will drop them automatically when I ask.

The gundog trainer's foot squashing method is just awful. Cruel and unnecessary. Sorry.

I have four fully trained, competitive gundogs and train with a variety of trainers very regularly. I also have many, many friends in the top end of the competitive gundog world. Not one of them would use a technique like that. Ever.

Truly, I am horrified. Inflicting pain or using the fear of pain to teach a dog anything is very, very wrong.

All the other advice about praising, rewarding etc is spot on!

Daisy - I did say that it wasn't the ideal solution. Obviously praise and reward are preferable, but sometimes you have to deal with a dog for whom nothing is better than having something in its mouth, not even treats or the most enthusiastic praise. The washing-up sponge-swallowing incident (for which the operation to remove it was not only expensive but risky and unpleasant) happened in spite of me trying to get him to swap the sponge for a treat. I have always used treats or praise to teach everything else, but this is the one thing he was absolutely stubborn about, and I felt that the temporary means of teaching him to drop was a lesser evil than having to deal with him dangerously swallowing something he didn't want to give up in the future.

I certainly won't be using the "squashed paw" method!!
Thanks for all the advice!

Crazy - I know you said it wasn't an ideal solution and I do understand that you were recommending it as an all else has failed, emergency measure.

It's just it's such a threatening and domineering technique which has no place in training a dog to give you what it's carrying. No gundog trainer worth his/her salt would actually want to teach a dog to drop what it had retrieved - it's a actively discouraged. Not to mention that he'd be instantly disqualified from any event or thrown off any shoot for that type of behaviour.

You might as well recommend pinching a dogs ear or walloping it until it drops. It will drop anything if you hurt or frighten it enough.