How to Teach Your Dog to Leave It

In this Chewtorial we’ll be covering tips and tricks for teaching the leave it command.
Teaching leave it provides pet parents with an invaluable tool for all the times your dog stumbles upon something gross and feels compelled to pick it up….with their mouth. The specifics of how to teach leave it are a bit more in depth than some of our other lessons but stick with it. With a little patience and practice, your dog will be turning their nose up to all things icky in no time. It’s also worth mentioning that this lesson would be a good modification to the “drop it” command, so if your pup hasn’t learned drop it yet, that’s probably a better place to start. Check out the Drop It Chewtorial for help.
Gather Your Supplies
You’ll need 10 dog treats and a way to hide them. You can use a dog training treat pouch, your pocket, or even just hide the treats behind your back.
Wait For Your Dog To Look at You
This step is easy. Perhaps the easiest in leave it training. Just wait for your dog to look at you and when they do, praise them and feed them a treat. Avoid using any action, gesture, or vocalization to attract their attention. The key here is for your dog to learn that looking at you will result in getting a treat.
Repeat Until Your 10 Treats Are Gone
Repeat the previous step until you have given all 10 treats away. Remember, no provoking your dog to look. It’s important for them to know that looking at you unprovoked is what is getting them the reward.
Introduce a Temptation
Now place a single treat in your hand and extend your arm all the way out to the side. Be sure your dog notices you do it and that they know what’s in your extended hand. We’ll call this your “temptation hand”.
Wait For Your Dog to Look Away From the Temptation
Watch your dog closely and wait for them to look away from your temptation hand. Like in previous steps, you’re waiting for them to look at you, but now you’re holding something desirable in your extended hand, so be patient. Teaching the leave it command consists of a whole lot of waiting on your dog.
Feed a Treat With Your Other Hand
As soon as your dog looks away from your temptation hand, praise them and feed them a treat from your other hand. It might be worth putting your temptation hand behind your back or hiding it in some way that lets them know the treat they were staring at for so long is not the one they are being fed.
If your dog looks at you while your temptation hand is outstretched, and they don’t even glance it or pay it any mind, praise that too.
Do this step 10 times and take a break of at least 30 minutes.
Add a Verbal Cue
Once you get to the point where your dog is reliably looking away from your temptation hand, add a verbal cue such as “Icky” or “Not yours” or even just plain old “Leave it”.
Say Your Cue
Whatever your cue is, say it clearly when they look away from your temptation hand.
Hold Out Your Temptation Hand
Same as before, hold out the hand with the temptation treat in it but do it right after saying your leave it cue.
Wait For Your Dog to Look at You
Patience is key. Be ready.
Praise Them & Feed Them a Treat With Your Other Hand
Once they look away from your temptation hand, feed them a treat from your other, non-temptation hand and shower on the praise. It’s a little bit complicated at first but eventually you should get to a point where your dog will look at you right when you say your cue.
Keep Practicing
When you get to the point where your dog knows your cue, try adding in more challenging aspects to the exercise. You can do this by lowering your temptation hand or by holding the temptation with an open palm instead of a closed fist.
Only implement one variation at a time and remember to allow your dog to set the pace. If you try a variation and they can’t resist the temptation, go back to something easier and let them work up to the challenge in smaller steps.
As with other Chewtorials, practice makes perfect when teaching the leave it command, so pile on the practice. This exercise should help regardless of age so if you’re teaching a puppy to leave it, do the same thing but with more patience. You’ve got this.

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