Episode #269 Leave It & Drop It: Teaching the Skills That Could Save Your Dog’s Life

“Leave it” and “drop it” aren’t just nice tricks—they’re essential safety skills every dog needs. In this episode, we break down how to teach both cues clearly, effectively, and without conflict. You’ll learn how to build reliability, prevent resource guarding, and understand when to use “drop it” versus trading for something better. Whether your dog grabs socks, snacks, or something dangerous on a walk, this episode will give you the tools to handle it with confidence.

Transcript

Why These Cues Matter

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Leave it and drop it aren't just nice tricks. They're really important safety skills that every dog needs. In today's episode, we're going to break down how to teach both cues clearly, effectively, and without conflict. Welcome to the Puppy Training Podcast, the show designed to help you raise a confident, well-behaved puppy using positive practical training methods. Each week we'll explore real-life training strategies, break down common puppy challenges, and give you clear, step-by-step guidance you can start using right away. Whether you're dealing with potty training, biting, jumping, or just want to build a stronger bond with your pup as their handler, you're in the right place. Alright, drop it and leave it. Sometimes get confused, but today let's talk about how to teach them effectively, how to build reliability. We want to definitely prevent any resource guarding and understand when to use drop it versus trading for something better. Whether your dog grabs socks or snacks or something dangerous on a walk. Today's episode where I'm going to give you the tools to handle it with confidence. So welcome back to the podcast. If it's been a while since you've been here, I'm glad you're back. If you're new, I'm Amy Jensen. I own Baxter Umbella the online puppy school. And this is our weekly podcast where we talk all things puppy. So today, topics, leave it and drop it. Let's do it. Before we get into the how, let's talk about the why. Dogs explore the world with their mouths, and that means food on the ground, trash, rocks, socks, mystery objects that you really don't want to identify. Leave it prevents your dog from picking something up in the first place. Drop it gives you a way to safely get something out of their mouth. So that's after the behavior of already picking something up. Leave it is before the behavior. Drop it is after the behavior, if the behavior is picking something up. Okay. Now, together, these cues are your first line of defense. Now, a lot of people accidentally turn leave it into a power struggle, and we don't want that. They might hover over their dog, or maybe they repeat the cue louder and louder, or maybe they try to physically block or grab the item, and the dog learns this human is trying to take my stuff. I should get it faster. That's not what we want. Instead, we want leave it to mean disengage from that thing and something better happens. Now, here's a step-by-step training guide for you. So, number one, we want to start with a little bit of food in your hand. I want you to hold a boring dog biscuit and a closed fist. I want to let your dog sniff it, lick it, pot. It's okay. Whatever they choose to do, I don't want you to do anything. Just put your hand down low enough that they can sniff it. And if they choose to lick it or pot it, that's okay. Just ignore, do nothing. The moment they back off, even slightly, so they take their nose or tongue away from your hand. I want you to mark yes, and I want you to pay with something higher value. Okay? So boring food reward is in your hand, better food reward is in your pouch. You're going to hold that fist down where your dog can sniff and lick and paw and try to get that boring biscuit. And the second that they leave your hand alone, the second, I'm talking just they're not touching you anymore. That's a yes, and I want you to pay them with something better with your other hand. Okay. Once your dog is consistently backing off, say leave it before presenting your hand. You're going to pair the cue with the behavior. We're not going to force it. So here's our gradual progression. We're going to move from hand to the floor, and then from covered to uncovered, and then from still to moving. So we have something in our hand. Next, we're going to have something on the floor. Okay. Then we're going to have something that's covered, and then we're going to uncover it. And then we might progress from something that's holding still to something that's moving. Can you see how each progression is getting a little bit harder? And each step should be easy enough that your dog can win. It's really important as we do training that we stay on a level that our dogs can win. And because they're winning, they're having a good time and they want to keep working. Okay? If I push too far too fast, I go from hand to something that's moving, that's going to be a big jump. And my dog might not be able to do it successfully, and they're just going to become more and more frustrated. So make sure that we do enough repetitions at each of the smaller levels or easier levels, and then slowly build up to the harder levels. Okay? So progress gradually. Now we want to reward disengagement, not restraint. Okay. The goal isn't your dog staring at the item resisting temptation. The goal is I see that and I choose to look away. So leave it is actually asking your dog to stop looking at something and look at you instead. Okay, that's the behavior we're going to reinforce. Now, if your dog fails, the setup again was too hard. It's not your dog being bad. It's just too hard for them. So we adjust the environment. We lower the difficulty again. We set them up to win. All right, now let's talk about drop it. This is where a lot of people panic, especially if their dog grabs something they shouldn't, right? The butter wrapper, uh, the chicken bone, like um, you name it, things medicine, uh, pillboxes or whatever. We don't want them to have those things. They're dangerous, and we get that. But the instinct is to, okay, I'm gonna pry my dog's mouth open, I'm going to chase them, I'm going to raise my voice and tell them no. But all of that can create guarding or keep away behavior or get it faster and run behavior. Okay. Now instead, we want your dog to think letting go is a good idea. How do we do that? We're going to start with low value items. Now, notice as we get going here that we are teaching your dog the concept of drop it before it's needed, before the emergency happens, right? Don't wait for this one. Start teaching this one right away so that when that emergency happens, you're not having to pry your dog's mouth open or chase them or raise your voice. You can give the cue drop it, and they know that it's worth it. Okay. So this is some pre-work you have to do. We're going to give our dog a toy. I want you to offer them a high value treat. When they drop the toy to get the food, I want you to mark and reward them. Okay. Pay them well. Now I want you to say drop it. Do that several times, five to ten times. And then I want you to say drop it just before presenting the food. Okay. Now, over time, the cue is going to predict the release. Now, this is a game changer. If your dog always loses the item, they'll hold tighter next time. So occasionally give them back. Give that item back to them. Dropping doesn't mean losing everything. It just means let it go, get a food reward, and you might get it back. Now you might not get it back, but you might get it back. Okay. Dogs like the unpredictability of that. Now don't wait until your dog has something dangerous. Again, we have to train this skill daily with safe objects until our dogs understand what the Q drop it means, and then they do it reliably. This takes some time. So definitely get started on this one. Now let's tackle a common debate. Should you trade with your dog? Short answer is yes, but with intention. So here are the pros of trading. It builds trust, it reduces guarding behaviors, and it encourages cooperation. Your dog is going to learn that giving things up leads to good outcomes. Now the concern is some people worry, well, won't my dog only drop things if I have food? That's a valid concern, but that's actually a training issue, not a trading issue. Now here's how we can help with that. We're going to start with some obvious trades. So we have an item and then a food reward. So gradually we're going to hide the food until after they drop it. We're going to vary the rewards, maybe it's treats sometimes or food, maybe it's toys, maybe it's praise, maybe it's a play, kind of a play session. Occasionally give the item back. Now your dog responds to the cue, not just the visible bribe. Now here's the rule of thumb. If it's dangerous, trade immediately, no hesitation. If it's training, we want to build reliability without always showing the reward. Safety is always first. And if you have any questions about this or you're nervous about this, please contact a trainer. We're happy to help you. We can coach you via video if you need us to. We're happy to kind of coach you through any of these issues that you're seeing, especially if your dog, you think your dog is a garter or there's growling happening. We don't want anybody to have a bite or any kind of issue like that. So please contact a trainer either locally to you or reach out to us so we can help you via video. Now, some common mistakes to avoid would be only using the cue in emergencies. We definitely need to practice the leave it, the drop it before it matters, okay? Um, another one would be repeating the cue. Drop it, drop it, drop it, drop it. That doesn't really help. Okay, it just probably stresses your dog out. We also don't want to make it a chase game. If you run after your dog, you have just made this thing fun. So beware of the chase. And then the last one would be taking things away every time. If I'm only saying this and the dog loses, my dog learns over time that these two cues, the leave it, the drop it, they don't like them because they always lose. So we have to make it so that they win. If they leave it or they drop it, that is a party. That is a big reward. That is a payment. Okay. And that's a payment that I would probably pay all of the time. Not bribing them, I'm paying them. All right, now a well-trained leave it looks like our dog notices something and they're choosing to ignore it. A solid drop it looks like an immediate release, even with interesting items. And most importantly, our dog is trusting us that listening to me leads to good outcomes. I want them to know that these two cues are awesome. And the dog wins when they hear these not loses, okay? If you take one thing from today's episode, let it be this: these skills are not about control, they're about communication and trust. The more your dog believes that good things happen when I listen, the faster and more reliable these behaviors become. So train them when it's easy, right? Make it easy at first. Help them win a lot. So they love these cues. And then make sure, even in emergencies, that they can still win. They listen to the dropout or the leave it, and it's an item you really don't want them to have. Make sure you then replace that with something better. So they think that that is awesome. Thanks for listening to the podcast today, you guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. We'll talk soon. Happy training. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a training tip. And if you're enjoying the show, leaving a quick review really helps other handlers find us. For more training resources, tips, and support, visit me Amy Jensen at baxterambella.com. Until next time, happy training.