How to make ‘Drop it’ mean ‘Drop It’.

Kingdom of Pets replied:

Backing off when she growls is actually reinforcing your dog's bad behavior. What she is learning here is "Growling works". Therefore until she becomes totally obedient, don't give her Dentabones or any bones if you are not confident you can take them away from her without injuring yourself.

Restart "Drop it" training using something she sees as less valuable than the Dentabone, such as a toy. You have to win every single time otherwise you will just be reinforcing her growling.

Teaching your dog to “Drop it” is a very important command to master. Your ultimate goal in teaching “Drop it” is for your dog to open her jaws and release whatever she’s holding in her mouth. This command is useful for a number of reasons including getting her to drop dangerous or delicate items she may have picked up. It is also important if you plan to teach her to play fetch.

Step One

• Armed with a tempting dog toy, and a small bag of tasty treats (small pieces of chopped-up meat or cheese are good) take your dog somewhere there are few distractions.
• Holding a treat in one hand, give her the toy. Allow her a few moments to really get absorbed in it, then hold a small piece of treat-food near her nose and say “Drop it”.
• When she opens her mouth feed her the treat immediately while giving an enthusiastic, “Good girl!”. Pick up the chew with the other hand.
• Return the toy to her and repeat the exercise. If she’s no longer interested in the toy(since she knows you’ve got treats!) break off training until you see her pick up something else in her mouth before repeating the exercise.
• Aim for 10 repetitions per day every day until she is reliably obedient.

The Next Step

When she’s reliably obedient at “drop it”, you can begin to phase out the treats. Don’t do it all at once, you’ll still need to treat occasionally; but studies have shown that treating ‘now and then’ is much more effective than treating every time without fail, and treating none of the time.

Here’s how to start phasing out the treats:

• Keep the bag of treats nearby, but don’t hold one in your hands. Give her the toy.
• Hold your empty fingers, pinched together as if holding a treat, near her nose and ask her to “Drop it”. If she’s practiced enough with the first step of “Drop it” (see above) she should obey. If not, you’ll need to spend more time on Step One.
• When she drops it, praise her warmly.
• Aim for 10 repetitions of this per day until she’s reliably obedient. Treat her occasionally.

The Final Steps

The next step is for you to take a more active role in the “Drop it” command. Perform the commands as listed above, but this time keep your hand on the item before asking her to drop it. The point of this is to get her used to having human hands on and around what she considers to be “her” possessions (the ultimate sign of possession for a dog is to carry something in her mouth). Last of all, build up to real-life objects: household items like remote controls, pencils, footwear, and so on. The wider the variety of objects that she is accustomed to dropping, the higher her quality of obedience is likely to be.

The Drop Command and Alpha Training

“Drop it” is a generalized command for dropping many items. In teaching and using the command you are reinforcing your status as the dominant ‘alpha’ dog. “Drop it” training is therefore more difficult if your dog does not see you as the pack leader, because if in the dogs mind IT is the pack leader it will feel that it has the right to control all resources such as food and toys. Therefore to assist in your “drop it” training as well as to improve your dogs behavior in general be sure to keep up your alpha training.

To refresh your memory on the details of alpha training see your Secrets to Becoming the Alpha Dog manual for detailed instructions.

All the best,

Daniel Stevens and the Secrets to Dog Training Team
"Secrets to Dog Training - STOP Dog Behavior Problems!"
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobediencetraining/

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