corvus
Posted : 3/16/2009 5:58:57 PM
Sometimes I don't think he's very smart. He spits out all sorts of delicious things for what has never been better than a boring old chew treat. Then again, he is very fond of just putting things in his mouth. Maybe the things he picks up just aren't as good to him as I think they are. Or perhaps the "good boy" is better to him than I think it is. We have a bit of confusion with our commands at the moment. He's known "give" since he was a puppy, but for him that means bring it over and put it right into our hand. We haven't had to use food much with that one because he thought this was a great game and still runs around the house picking things up and bringing them back to us for his cuddle. He's very giving. 
We have never tried using it on things he wants to eat because it's come to mean something quite specific to us as well and we just never think of it when we're trying to get him to cough up a dead nestling. Hence the new command, that was meant to mean "come away from that" but instead means "spit it out right where you are". It's funny how sometimes training on the run creates some inappropriately named commands. I think you're right and I should just make a new command. "Come away" might make more sense!
We are quite happy to reward him for doing what we ask even when he's set himself up to receive the command. We have socks all over the yard that he took outside instead of giving to us, but we're happy to encourage him to pick socks up in the first place by rewarding him when he brings them to us and happily drops them in our hands.