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TAG-ALONG BEHAVIOR WITH OFF/LEAVE IT CUE
I’ve been practicing the OFF/LEAVE IT cue with my friend’s dog, Rockett. My description of a correct response to this cue is for the dog to immediately withdraw his nose and body as the food (or any other tempting item) is coming into the dog’s space, with no attempt to touch or grab it. The dog must then continue to ignore the temptation until given a specific permission cue to take it.
Rockett had previously learned a behavior chain, where he first bumped the food-holding hand lightly before moving his impressive needle nose away, which was then rewarded. As a result, that initial nose bump got folded into the overall skill.
(I’ll post videos a bit later. Of course, while filming, the wonderful Rockett barely allowed me to get an ‘error’ version of the skill, he was doing so well!)
How would you set a dog like Rockett up for success in this situation, to both fade out the initial bump and to create plenty of opportunities to reward the correct behavior?
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3 Replies
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I have actually seen this a lot in training. Mostly group classes- because people are just moving through the curriculum so fast and I see “touch” trained before hand. What I found helps is more distance between your closed fist and the dog. Even just a couple more inches. That little more distance sometimes the dog doesn’t have interest and you can quickly mark for that disengagement. It’s breaking the chance to bop the hand with a very low value item in it. This seems to always work for me. I think if that didn’t work – you could also start with the low value treat on a chair – to get rid of the hand visual all together – each dog is different.
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This is fantastic input, @pawsup — thank you! You’re right that presenting the temptation at a bit more distance at first can really set the dog up for early success.
I also LOVE that you mention the issue of cues being trained in close succession which might end up confusing the dog as to what you want them to do. TOUCH and LEAVE IT, closely trained together, will indeed create confusion. A PAW trick closely trained around the LEAVE IT or TOUCH cue will also confuse things for a lot of dogs.While the ultimate issue is a lack of stimulus control, i.e., the behavior isn’t solidly on cue and only offered when that cue is given, this is often not terribly important to pet parents when teaching a cute PAW trick. In these cases, I suggest two things: 1) temporarily stop PAW training if teaching a solid LEAVE IT or TOUCH is important, and 2) be sure the hand position/presentation is as different as possible between these skills. (Example: with PAW and TOUCH, an open hand held horizontally will look a lot different than a presented fist for a touch target.)
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Completely agree!!
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