Stick-eating dog

Wow, are you a slow learner, LOL. []   Properly executed, it doesn't teach him to go get a stick, it teaches him to give the handler the stick he already has.  If you don't over do it, you have no problem.
The critical thing is to teach the dog a "leave it" command that you can use to prevent him from picking up the stick in the first place. 

ORIGINAL: alisiaj78
 NOW the problem is that she's figured out "Hey, I can get a treat by picking up this stick and spitting it out when I'm told"... so I think she puts stuff in her mouth now more than ever!!  I'll toss away whatever she's put in her mouth once she's dropped it (if I catch it before she swoops it up again!), but she'll just pick something else up.  Also, she's recently started spitting out only PART of whatever she picked up, and continuing to munch on, and sometimes swallow, the rest.

So, I guess I'm partially looking for ways to get leave-it and drop-it to work reliably again, although I guess what I'm really looking for is some way to get her to lose all interest in eating foreign objects, because of course I worry about what she might be eating every time I'm not looking.  Any advice??

Oh no! Your dog is too smart for her own good. []

That's the kind of thing that happens with noisy pet parrots. They go, if I make screeching noises that damage people's ear drums, they come and talk to me. It's really hard to ignore your eardrums hurting, so you go talk to the bird and shout at it or whatever and it's happy because you came over and then it stops making noise until you try to leave again.

So it's a tough one. The way I see it, you've got a few options.

You could try trading for less wonderful treats. Maybe you could trade for safe chew items instead of food. Squeaky toys might work.

You could try Angelique's suggestion and block your pup from picking things up by stepping confidently into her space when she goes to pick something up. Saying something sharp like "hey" or "leave it" in a low, firm tone while you body block the dog would probably help.

Or, you could do the ol' leash pop everytime the dog tries to pick something up. Of course, that means you have to have the dog on leash whenever there are things she can pick up knocking around. I don't hold with leash pops and wouldn't know how to do it properly, so you might want to ask espencer if you want to go that way.

If I were you, I'd practice "drop it" really hard. Every time I was going to give something to the dog, I'd be taking the opportunity to trade, even if that meant starting a game just so you can trade a toy for dinner at the end, or something like that. But I think I wouldn't do practice sessions just for that, but rather work it into everyday life. For example, if you practice NILIF, your dog's work can be to drop something if she wants something else. But, to try to guard against the tricky picking it up to spit it out thing, I'd ignore the dog picking something up to drop it and only reward if she drops something you've already given her. Does that make sense?

So, if she picks something up herself, I'd ignore it if you can until she's got "leave it" or "drop it" down pretty good. Obviously, you can't ignore things that are going to be dangerous to her if she chews them up, so in those cases, I'd trade with an acceptable chew toy and walk away, or I'd intimidate the dog into dropping the forbidden item in the way that Angelique was describing.

"Ah-ah!" is a good sound to distract dogs from picking something up in the first place. When I was teaching Penny "leave it", I used "ah-ah!", then "leave it" once I had her attention. It seemed to work.

That's all just what I would do. Hope that helps.

Taking a stick away from certain dogs can be quite different than, say...taking a 3 lb knuckle bone away from a 130 lb snarling, "whale-eyed", intact, 2 year old male Tibetan Mastiff...that was a fun one.
 
It's always good to get professional help to avoid getting bitten if your dog isn't taking you seriously and trading for higher value items isn't working for you.
 
 

Actually she was saying quite the opposite.  Her dog is getting TOO GOOD at the trade.

I'm not sure how to quote multiple posts into one post, but I'll try to keep track of each of the above posts and respond accordingly:
 
Wolfdog:  when trying to teach leave it or drop it, I would suggest something with a strong smell, so it's easier to get the dog's attention without having to shove the treat in his face. Also, since you'll probably have to give LOTS of treats and don't want to leave your dog stuffed, you'll need something soft you can easily break into tiny pieces.  The Beggin' Strips would probably be most effective.
 
espencer:  I'm glad that someone besides me recognizes that standard +R methods just don't work in some situations.  I know the show you're talking about, because my co-worker had mentioned it... it's the Dog Whisperer.  I never saw his show until a few days ago because I don't have the National Geographic Channel and it just showed up on On Demand.  I wasn't sure how make this method work, but that bring's me to...
 
Angelique:  Thanks for describing this method, I will certainly give it a try.  Meanwhile I will practice "leave it" and "drop it" in our kitchen where the dog generally has a better attention span.
 
SpiritDogs:  Luckily for me my dog is not food-aggressive or into resource-guarding, at least when it comes to human involvement.  She showed early signs of resource guarding with bones and rawhides, and at an age of only 4 months I found it easy to curb this behavior by simply calmly taking away cherished items and returning them to her after she performed a few simple obedience commands.  I can now take away any of her chew treats and she doesn't put up a fuss.  The bite on the thumb occurred simply because she didn't stop chewing on the corncob while my hand was in her mouth, and I think the fact that I was pannicking about it rubbed off on her and made the situation worse.  But your point is well-taken, I'd be wary of taking away anything from a dog with serious aggression or resource-guarding issues.
 
Corvus:
I've never tried a leash snap with anything but a choke chain and I'm not sure if it would work with either the Gentle Leader I walk her on or the flat collar she wears out in the yard.  I don't want to use either a choke or prong collar on her because she tugs much too hard and I'm afraid of injuring her.  It's easier to pull her head up and away from things when she's wearing the gentle leader, so maybe I need to use that even in the back yard.  I think your advice to keep practicing leave it and drop it while trying something else until she really learns the commands is a good idea.

I was thinking about this problem overnight, Alisia. It seems maybe you've targeted dropping the sticks rather than not picking them up in the first place. I understand you've taught a reasonable "leave it", but your dog is finding it more rewarding to pick a stick up and then get the reward for dropping it on command? I'm not sure if that's exactly what's happened.

Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe you should be concentrating especially on strengthening "leave it" and only using trades or "drop/give" when you haven't been quick enough on the leave it. I've seen people train "leave it" fairly effectively by placing treats near a dog, saying "leave it" and then not letting them take the treat until they give the release. You could work on that with dinner and the likes, too.

I'm also wondering if there's a way to teach a dog not to pick things up that I haven't given the dog. We have a 'friendly' neighbour somewhere nearby that drops cooked bones over the fence to our dogs when we're not home. That resulted in a couple of trips to the vet for Penny to remove shards of bone from her bowels, and she wasn't allowed to eat raw bones for a few months afterwards. I'm thinking that maybe the way to tackle it is to put something like "pick it up" on command, so you don't play until the dog waits for your command, then picks up the toy. I dunno. I think I'll have to think about it some more.

BTW, I wouldn't use leash pops, either. I don't hold with them at all, but I thought I should mention them just in case you wanted to go that way. 

ORIGINAL: corvus

I was thinking about this problem overnight, Alisia. It seems maybe you've targeted dropping the sticks rather than not picking them up in the first place. I understand you've taught a reasonable "leave it", but your dog is finding it more rewarding to pick a stick up and then get the reward for dropping it on command? I'm not sure if that's exactly what's happened.

 
Yes, Corvus, I think you're right.  If I've got a treat in hand, she'll promptly spit something out when I say "drop it", then pick it right up again and look at me, as if she's just waiting for the command again and another treat!!  I've started delaying the treat a little, holding it above her nose so she sits, which gives me a second to remove the object.  But it seems that she's definitely started to associate the treat with picking something up, which is counter-productive.

Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe you should be concentrating especially on strengthening "leave it" and only using trades or "drop/give" when you haven't been quick enough on the leave it. I've seen people train "leave it" fairly effectively by placing treats near a dog, saying "leave it" and then not letting them take the treat until they give the release. You could work on that with dinner and the likes, too.

 
I've thought of that, too.  I put my dog in a sit and stay before putting down her food bowl, and she'll just sit there looking at it until I give her the OK to eat.  Maybe once I put down the bowl I should tell her to "leave it", so she gets a better understanding of what that command means?

 I'm thinking that maybe the way to tackle it is to put something like "pick it up" on command, so you don't play until the dog waits for your command, then picks up the toy. I dunno. I think I'll have to think about it some more.

 
That's a good idea.  We've tried tackling other issues that way.  For instance, we taught her "speak" so that we could also teach her "quiet", and that seems to be working.  We also taught her "up" to jump on command rather than at her own whim... this hasn't been getting the desired results as quickly as we hoped but we've seem SOME progress (she's now more likely to sit when she greets us and wait for the "up", although with other people she still just tries to jump all over them right away), so maybe the same approach could work here.  Then I could also teach her to pick up her toys and put them away, LOL!
 

ORIGINAL: alisiaj78

ORIGINAL: corvus

Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe you should be concentrating especially on strengthening "leave it" and only using trades or "drop/give" when you haven't been quick enough on the leave it. I've seen people train "leave it" fairly effectively by placing treats near a dog, saying "leave it" and then not letting them take the treat until they give the release. You could work on that with dinner and the likes, too.

I've thought of that, too.  I put my dog in a sit and stay before putting down her food bowl, and she'll just sit there looking at it until I give her the OK to eat.  Maybe once I put down the bowl I should tell her to "leave it", so she gets a better understanding of what that command means?

Yeah, I think so. I think I'd try to practice it on all sorts of things in all sorts of situations so it gets nice and generalised. Let's hope that helps you out some.

I taught Penny 'quiet' the same way you did. [] It worked fairly well, but she often needs to calm herself down a little bit before she actually can manage to be quiet, and that involves getting her to come and sit by me first. Some dogs have limits you have to work with. We have a 2 year old boxer/kelpie cross who likes to jump all over people as well. The only thing that has really worked is getting her to sit if she wants cuddles. She's not so bad with visitors, though.

Good luck with it all and I hope you can solve some of your problems. []