I had a break through today so I thought I would share it and get feedback. Jethro is a reactive dog who will fixate on something, and that is the precursor to a full on episode of barking and lunging. If he isn't on leash, it can lead to an incident of him circling and barking his target. Very unpleasant. We have been working hard with him, for months, to address this issue and help Jethro control his reactions to interesting things.

I have been using Leave It, but I haven't had much luck with it and today it dawned on me that the words don't actually mean anything to Jethro. If I tell him to Leave It, what am I telling him to do? It wasn't enough to expect him to leave his target and simply resume a casual walk. That would mean Leave It signaled relaxation, letting go of something that is VERY interesting, and going back to "As we were". Well, that is a pretty sophisticated sequence of events for an adolescent, male, intermittently high drive doggie to do.

This afternoon I taught Jethro that Leave It means look at me for new instructions. And then we did all kinds of things. The fun part was that the object of his attention had gotten his drive up, so I was able to play fun games for the first time because he actually had some energy.

What used to be really frightening incidents were turned into moments of high jumps, tug, ball retreiving and OB exercises (all on leash, of course).

The amazing thing was the more we played, the less bothered he was by small white dogs, dogs playing, dogs passing by, etc. He was playing with ME and it felt pretty special. And now I know what it means to have my dog in drive.

Now if I could figure out how to bring that out of him without high level distractions.

hmmm...well, it would seem (in my novice opinion) that "leave it" translates as a "look" or "watch me" command now-and that the reward is play -does that sound accurate?

I trained "leave it" with tasty food or high value toy placed in front of the dog with zero external distractions at first -I didn't care if the dog stared at the object, or looked around the room or whatever -as long as she didn't touch what I told her to leave..

I know alot of folks go ahead and apply "leave it" and take it on the road -against dogs, squirrels, etc. But now Jethro will be looking to play when he hears "leave it" and redirects, so you'll just have to use another command when you want a calm passive behavior, like "ignore" or something.

But however you refine it Jenny -YAY Jethro!!