Leash Lessons: Drop It Like a Hot Potato
Crokell and Dante provide video demonstrations of today's Leash Lesson: Drop It! Crokell is awesome, and Dante surprises all of us.
Hi there, fellow Chaos Critters and Chaos Tamers! Today we are going to do another Leash Lesson. So, grab your leashes, treats, and toys. Let’s smash our newest trick. This week we are covering the all-important “drop it”.
It is wonderful weather this week for some outside work, and the pups are raring to go! If you have been lurking around the blog for a while, you will remember our two most often shown Chaos Critters: Crokell and Dante. They are going to help me later in quick demo videos of what “drop it” should look like. So, we have two nice videos courtesy of the Tod.
What is the “Drop It!” Command
If you have a dog, you know that they will stick anything and everything in their mouth. Our previous Leash Lessons on “leave it” discuss how to prevent them from doing the ground hoover. But here, we are going to discuss how to get them to spit out whatever they have picked up out before it becomes a problem, medical or otherwise.
“Drop it” is actually a pretty tough trick, but incredibly important. To me, the “drop it” command means open your mouth and let whatever you are holding fall to the ground and “leave it” the hell alone.
While “drop it” can be for safety reasons, it is also the beginning of fetch, and lots of other fun tricks and training.
In fetch, you want them to give you the ball. You want them to “drop it” so you can throw it again, again, and again. But not too many times because then you will get injured or your dog will go dig a hole and hide it. Not that ever has happened to me… (That was my brother’s Puggle. -Tod)
For competition, “drop it” is needed for the dumbbell retrieves. It is also useful for service dogs, where you want to send the dog to get an item you need and bring it back. And last, all of you have to end that game of tug sometime, otherwise your arm will fall off. “Drop it” is the perfect command for such as occasion.
While you should have had your house more or less puppy-proofed, I know that sometimes people have problems with their dogs getting their shoes or other toys. A lot of that’s boredom, but you might need to drop it. And if you need to drop it, or if you are having those problems, you should be practicing this with toys, not your shoes or something else expensive or important. Because if you are practicing with shoes, they’re going to still think shoes are toys, and we need to not have that.
We want to be able say “drop it,” have that thing out of their mouth like a hot potato. Otherwise you are taking it out of their mouth, and nobody wants that. (Reminder: drool is love. -Tod)
Teaching “Drop It!” One Trade at a Time
It is often good to start “drop it” with what they call a trade-up.
“Trading up” means that the critter gives you whatever they are currently holding to get something better, whether that is another toy, a treat or attention, depends on the critter.
For example, if they are like Dante and LOVE tug, you can trade up from a ball or a stick or a bone to a tug rope.
You are going to want to start once again in a low-distraction place with the dog on a leash so they can’t run away and turn it into a chase game. And you want two or three values of toys. I prefer to use toys over treats, but you can use treats if your dog is more food driven.
Start by playing with the low-value toy, something that they’re not as enamored with. Let them take the toy, say “drop it” once, and then help them “drop it”. Then you say “yes, good boy” and give them a reward, or pet them, or play with them with a different, better toy! While I show it in the video using the same toy, it is better to “trade up” to a new and better toy so that your critter doesn’t lose interest. I don’t have that problem with Dante, Crokell on the other hand is another matter…
With Toys
For training with three values of toys for “drop it”, end when they’re given the best one. I’m not going to have them drop the highest value one. I’m going to just play their favorite game with them or move on to a different exercise with that toy.
With Food
The other version is where you are trading the toys for food. This is good for fetch especially. You jackpot them with some treats or a lot of attention and pets, but most of the time it’s treats. You should only say “drop it” once. That’s a big thing. And whenever they spit it out, once they do it, give them two to three treats in a row. (They don’t need a lot of treats at once. Give them one piece quickly three times back to back. A lot of treats once is “one treat” to them. Three back to back is “three treats”. -Tod) And then when they finish eating, you either let them pick up the toy or you give them the toy.
Teaching “Drop It!” on Leash
Like always in Leash Lessons, we start on leash. That’s why is a Leash Lesson!
This prevents your critter from running far away, not that they should want to during training time. The leash should start small (six-foot), but some day you can work up to a fifteen-foot leash or off leash once you both are comfortable with them doing this on a six-foot leash. Otherwise, especially with this lesson, it will likely turn into a chase session!
There are other ways, like where you want to make sure that you have corrections. The reason I say that you want to do this on leash is you do not want the dog to be like, “Well, they’re going to take my toys. I’m going to run away.” You want to have them on a leash to make sure that you can reel them in if you need to, and to remove the toy if needed.
When I say remove the toy, I do not want you to wrestle the toy away from them because they’re going to learn tug from that. That’s why you have push the toy up and back into their mouth to get it out! This might mean that you reeled them in nicely with the leash. You want them right in front of you and then you take hold of the other end of the toy and instead of tug. Press up and into them, this motion makes the dog gag and therefore let go.
The leash can provide other information is going to be that it will tighten, and you tighten both the leash and then the push-up at the same time. It’s sort of going, “This isn’t working. You should make a different choice,” and they’ll slowly learn it.
Keep it Short
As for practice, keep it short. Keep it fun. Don’t repeat the drop it to death. They aren’t going to want to keep giving stuff away, unless you are doing fetch but even that has limits. (Remember the Puggle! -Tod) Until you have it down, I would say that you do it around three times a day at MOST. If they hit it good the first time, just let it go. Train something else. There is a lot still left and plenty of time.
You do not want them to get tired out. If you’ve done two reps and the second rep is beautiful, but you were planning on doing five, consider stopping. The reason is they say the dog retains the lesson from the last attempt. With Crokell, too many repetitions is a big deal, because by the fourth or fifth rep, he is bored as hell and he doesn’t want to work for me anymore, doing the exact same thing. He wants to change up! Or he will just doze off and take a nap, even in the ring! (This took some time to figure out in classes where they have the trainer repeat something 20 times in class. Not Anna and Crokell. He’s too smart and thinks Anna should be too. -Tod)
Other Corrections
If you are struggling with this, you can use a sort of body block for the trade. It means that you’ve leashed them in and then you prevent them from taking both items until they dropped the current one. It is about the placement of your body to prevent them from trading up like a freeloader at a buffet. This prevents your critter from just taking what they want and ignoring you.
Body blocking is really about your posturing of holding yourself up and sort of making them give it to you. But you can also do this with… presence. This is a feeling you can project, that say “I am in charge” or “You listen to me.” It’s not forceful or full aggro, it is a calm alpha, a stable presence of a calm confidence that one projects. It says to the dog, “No, this is mine” and “you obey.” Some of us just have this with dogs, other people can learn it. But once you have it, dogs (and people) will usually respond and listen.
(We used to live in a high rise and, even pre-Crokell, we always rode the freight elevator for a chance to see dogs. A guy and his chihuahua got in. The dog was standing there wiggling and Anna just looked down at it. The dog sat. The owner looked at the dog. Then looked at Anna. Finally, he said, “I didn’t know he knew how to sit.” -Tod)
The Progression
In this progression, you go from home quiet to outside park free range fetch, but it is slow. We play with toys in our house. As we trade up, we know how many times we are going to go up, because we have ranked our different toys. Then you can look at changing it from toys to possibly a chewy or a carrot (lower and lower value) until the trade is automatic and you can start just doing fetch. But always practice with low-risk items.
Let’s Level It Up with Some Games
Hold, Bring, Drop: If your critter knows “hold it” a good game is to have them hold the toy for 5 seconds to 1 minute and then have them come and give it to you. This levels up both the hold it and the drop it.
Fetch: If they know “get it”, this is a great slow or fast game which can get you to a true fetch. You should have taught “get it” where they pick up a toy you have thrown, now you want them to bring it back, you run away from them calling them and get them to bring you the toy. Then ask them to drop it. They will learn if they drop it, you pick up the toy and the game continues. Turning it into a lot of dogs’ favorite game, FETCH. (Pro tip: even this starts on leash!)
Drop It on the Walk
On walks, however, if they do pick up a leaf, stick, empty cardboard box, or whatever, and you need to get it out, you shorten up that leash, give them the “drop it” command, help them “drop it” by pressing it on the inside of their jaw. Once they’ve done it, you move away from that object, praise them, get them to do some other trick for you to get their mind off it. In that case, it’s not training. It’s just real life. Let’s keep them safe.
Tip of the Week
When you pick something up, make sure that you’re willing to let it go because everything spoils at some point. Sometimes, drop it isn’t just a game - it’s good advice.
Critter’s Weekly Question
What is the most disgusting thing that your dog, cat, or other critter has picked up that you’ve had to get them to drop? Why do you think it was harder than a regular drop for you?
Happy training, and don’t forget to “drop” a quick question or tip in the comments. That’s all. Thank you.
~Anna and Tod
Minstrels in the Galaxy
Let’s not drop the ball on reading either. Here’s an oldie but a goodie!
Minstrels in the Galaxy contains our delightfully chaotic story “Tablet in the Air.” It is a mix of sci-fi and fantasy, but with a similar feel to our free fiction in our Chaos Tales Section. (One of the less dark stories.)
https://www.amazon.com/Minstrels-Galaxy-Stories-Key-Tull-ebook/dp/B0D79FMH8S/
And of course, we cannot forget to thank the editors and publishers for this anthology, Sam Robb and Shari Robb. They put in a ton of work into making this and other anthologies. We are still grateful to have been selected for their first publication.