# Multiple Questions -- Leave It...Flirt Pole...walking



## VChurch (Jun 14, 2010)

Okay, first question; I've been working on 'leave it' and minna has no problem leaving a treat on the floor to come to me and get something else; or leaving her fetch toy to come to me, etc etc. My question is about how to train when it comes to other things -- such as I've heard people mention that when they want their dogs to ignore something they say "leave it"...how do you get them to that point?????? What do I need to do to work on these other areas of 'leave it'??

And a flirt pole; can somebody pleaseeee tell me how to make one -- I definitely need to/want to make one. I think it would be great exercise and great fun for both of my dogs.


And walking at my left side; she's decent at it, but she sorta does this "speed up, slow down" thing -- she should know where I want her to walk by now, but maybe I'm doing it wrong; or maybe I'm expecting too much from her (she's 20 weeks old)...eventually I would like to have her walking at a heel.


And what are other great tricks/obedience commands I can teach and work on??? She knows sit, stay, wait, come, lay down, shake, touch (to touch my hand), speak, drop it, leave it (sorta, I guess), enough (as in stop doing what ever you're doing), bring it (like her fetch toy), close (to get closer to me when we're walking), easy (don't pull the leash..ie slow down).....there's probably more that I can't think of. Any way...suggestions???

 Thanks much


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## DCluver33 (May 27, 2010)

VChurch said:


> Okay, first question; I've been working on 'leave it' and minna has no problem leaving a treat on the floor to come to me and get something else; or leaving her fetch toy to come to me, etc etc. My question is about how to train when it comes to other things -- such as I've heard people mention that when they want their dogs to ignore something they say "leave it"...how do you get them to that point?????? What do I need to do to work on these other areas of 'leave it'??
> 
> And a flirt pole; can somebody pleaseeee tell me how to make one -- I definitely need to/want to make one. I think it would be great exercise and great fun for both of my dogs.
> 
> ...


ok to answer your first question:
for Leave it while walking i bring a clicker and treats and every time I say leave it and the dog looks away click and treat. I did a lot of ground work with Leave it before I attempted it outside on a walk. I held a treat in the hand with a clicker and a treat in the other hand and when I said leave it the dog has to look away click treat always leaving one treat in a hand (usually the one with the clicker) the once my dog got good at this I put the treat on the floor and practiced Leave it. then i moved it outside (not walking) then once he got good outside then i did it on a walk.

to answer your second question:
I went to our local feed store and bought a lunge whip (the long whips they use for horses), then i went to a pet store i.e PetSmart and bought a light weight toy then i tied it on the end of the string on the lunge whip (I played tug with it before i tied it on to the whip to get my dog engaged in it). Then i took my dog to an open field attached a long leash to him and gave him a special word (I use Hund) for his release word then let him have at it. When you first start doing it I'd let your dog catch it and play with it a lot then once your dog gets the hang of it keep it away form him longer. This is a good way to practice leave it and drop it. 

to answer your third question:
to teach heel I used a treat and a clicker for this as well. I held a treat at my left side and had my dog follow it with his nose and when he was in the right position i clicked and treated him while i was walking it's hard to do but it'll help. I also stopped and made him sit when he got to far in front of me, but the click and treat works better

as for tricks I taught my dog to: spin, roll over, lay on his side, wave, touch my hand, high five, sit, down, from down to sit, come, stay and shake. He's learning to spin in the other direction and play dead.


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## Good_Karma (Jun 28, 2009)

I like "paws up" to teach them to put their front feet on something (for no real reason) and the "off" to get them to put all four on the floor.

There's also "crawl" and we use a weight bench to teach "over" and "under".


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## Stosh (Jun 26, 2010)

Ok, so DCluver said everything I was going to say! I also taught several of those tricks, Stosh loves using his paws so I hide a treat in one hand and he has to touch the one with the treat in it. He also knows spin and rinse, which is spin in the opposite direction. At 20 months she should know heel and to sit when you stop. Maybe try a prong collar for heeling, works wonders. You can also make a flirt pole out of a length of pvc pipe, thread a rope through it, knot it and tie a toy on the end. But the lunge whip has a lot more 'action' to it


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

VChurch said:


> And walking at my left side; she's decent at it, but she sorta does this "speed up, slow down" thing -- she should know where I want her to walk by now, but maybe I'm doing it wrong; or maybe I'm expecting too much from her (she's 20 weeks old)...eventually I would like to have her walking at a heel.


Yep, expecting way too much.  At her age she may have some idea of where you want her to be, but teaching "heel" is a process that can take some time, and she still doesn't have an adult attention span so I'm sure she's easily distracted. I literally walked hundreds of miles teaching Halo leash skills. I get compliments all the time now on how nicely she walks with me and how attentive she is, but that did not happen overnight. I would in no way expect a 20 week old puppy to REALLY understand heel. If Minna is doing pretty well on a loose leash most of the time, consider that a victory but keep working on it. 

I agree with using a clicker and treats to mark and reward for generalizing "leave it" to other things and other situations. Basically you'd use the same method that you did with food and toys, either in your hand or on the ground. Either body block her from getting them or work with her on leash, but do not physically pull her back, just use the leash to hold her in place and then mark the second that she turns away from whatever it is and back to you. This is a great exercise for teaching impulse control, basically a default leave it:






I like to teach puppies "watch" (look at me), "find it" (look for a treat on the floor), and "touch" (nose bump to my palm), these are the trinity of attention directing exercises that are handy foundation behaviors that can be built upon later. 

Rather than make a flirt pole, I bought this toy: Chase-It Pet Products, LLC

Something else you can do with her is mat work, teaching her to go lay down on a mat. I've combined mat work with a flirt pole, where the reward for staying on the mat is to be released to play with the toy, and then the dog gets sent back to the mat.


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## DCluver33 (May 27, 2010)

Stosh said:


> Ok, so DCluver said everything I was going to say! I also taught several of those tricks, Stosh loves using his paws so I hide a treat in one hand and he has to touch the one with the treat in it. He also knows spin and rinse, which is spin in the opposite direction. At 20 months she should know heel and to sit when you stop. Maybe try a prong collar for heeling, works wonders. You can also make a flirt pole out of a length of pvc pipe, thread a rope through it, knot it and tie a toy on the end. But the lunge whip has a lot more 'action' to it


haha beat you to it!! lol I'm Steph btw


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## VChurch (Jun 14, 2010)

Cassidy's Mom said:


> Yep, expecting way too much.  At her age she may have some idea of where you want her to be, but teaching "heel" is a process that can take some time, and she still doesn't have an adult attention span so I'm sure she's easily distracted. I literally walked hundreds of miles teaching Halo leash skills. I get compliments all the time now on how nicely she walks with me and how attentive she is, but that did not happen overnight. I would in no way expect a 20 week old puppy to REALLY understand heel. If Minna is doing pretty well on a loose leash most of the time, consider that a victory but keep working on it.



I'm not expecting a full heel -- I know that will be a while. I guess I am happy with where she's at right now; she's walking at my left side (for the most part). Occasionally she'll try to switch sides behind me (sneaky dog) or speed up a bit, or slow down a bit to sniff something. And she likes to try to pull to go in the grass -- but I'm really particular on the the "not pulling me thing" so I make her wait until she's calm and walking on a loose leash and then I tell her "alright, go ahead" so that hopefully she's learning she needs to be released to go play in the grass.


Thanks for the tips on 'leave it' -- I just wasn't sure what direction to go in after being able to leave a treat on the floor and her leave it.

And she knows "focus" for getting her focus on me. And 'touch' for touching my palm. I'll have to start on 'find it'. Thanks for the other tricks though!!



With the flirt pole....which is the cheapest?? To just buy that 'chase it' thing, or make one on my own???


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## DJEtzel (Feb 11, 2010)

DCluver33 said:


> to answer your second question:
> I went to our local feed store and bought a lunge whip (the long whips they use for horses), then i went to a pet store i.e PetSmart and bought a light weight toy then i tied it on the end of the string on the lunge whip (I played tug with it before i tied it on to the whip to get my dog engaged in it). Then i took my dog to an open field attached a long leash to him and gave him a special word (I use Hund) for his release word then let him have at it. When you first start doing it I'd let your dog catch it and play with it a lot then once your dog gets the hang of it keep it away form him longer. This is a good way to practice leave it and drop it.


I've read that when starting out with a flirt pole you should KEEP it from the dog and NOT let them play with it to increase drive. I'd look this up online from a professional before ruining your dog with the flirtpole by letting them play with the toy constantly. 



> to answer your third question:
> to teach heel I used a treat and a clicker for this as well. I held a treat at my left side and had my dog follow it with his nose and when he was in the right position i clicked and treated him while i was walking it's hard to do but it'll help. I also stopped and made him sit when he got to far in front of me, but the click and treat works better


If you ever have intentions to have a competition heel, I wouldn't use this method. It makes dogs very reliant on hand position and luring for a long time in the heel, taking longer to regain attention on your face WHILE maintaining position. 



Stosh said:


> At 20 months she should know heel and to sit when you stop. Maybe try a prong collar for heeling, works wonders.


20 WEEKS, Stosh. OP, please don't use a prong on any dog younger than 8 months.


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## DCluver33 (May 27, 2010)

DJEtzel said:


> I've read that when starting out with a flirt pole you should KEEP it from the dog and NOT let them play with it to increase drive. I'd look this up online from a professional before ruining your dog with the flirtpole by letting them play with the toy constantly.


actually on the contrary you should let your dog play with it because if you keep it away from them from the start they'll lose interest and not want to go after it at all. When I first started my dog on the flirt pole thought the same thing and kept it away from him, but he ended up not wanting anything to do with it because I wasn't letting him catch and play with it, he ended up going off and smelling something rather than chase the toy. Now that he know what he's supposed to do I keep it away from him only letting him catch it every once in awhile.


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## DCluver33 (May 27, 2010)

DJEtzel said:


> If you ever have intentions to have a competition heel, I wouldn't use this method. It makes dogs very reliant on hand position and luring for a long time in the heel, taking longer to regain attention on your face WHILE maintaining position.


that's why I stated that she could use the clicker and treat, but in order to get the dog where you want it to be you have to use a treat to lure him to the position you want otherwise he won't know where to walk. this is for non-competition, I don't think she wants a competition heel, she only asked how to teach her dog heel.


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## DJEtzel (Feb 11, 2010)

DCluver33 said:


> actually on the contrary you should let your dog play with it because if you keep it away from them from the start they'll lose interest and not want to go after it at all. When I first started my dog on the flirt pole thought the same thing and kept it away from him, but he ended up not wanting anything to do with it because I wasn't letting him catch and play with it, he ended up going off and smelling something rather than chase the toy. Now that he know what he's supposed to do I keep it away from him only letting him catch it every once in awhile.


Do you have an article or resource written by a professional explaining this?



DCluver33 said:


> that's why I stated that she could use the clicker and treat, but in order to get the dog where you want it to be you have to use a treat to lure him to the position you want otherwise he won't know where to walk. this is for non-competition, I don't think she wants a competition heel, she only asked how to teach her dog heel.


That's not true. Even if you aren't going for a competition heel, you don't don't have to lure to get them to the spot. I lure less than 10% of the time in any training with Frag. Luring is how you get dogs dependent and make it harder for them to perfom.


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## DCluver33 (May 27, 2010)

DJEtzel said:


> Do you have an article or resource written by a professional explaining this?
> 
> 
> > no I don't have an article or a resource written by a professional, but think about it if you were a dog and you just started chasing something and never caught it would you do it again? probably not. Every dog is different, I was just saying what I did with my dog to get him to chase the toy, as I stated before when I first started him on the flirt pole I kept it away from him a lot and he got bored and went off sniffing somewhere not paying any attention to the toy that I was flicking in front of his face. Once I got him to understand what I wanted I kept him away from it for a longer period of time only letting him catch it when he out smarted me or I let him catch it.
> ...


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## VChurch (Jun 14, 2010)

I imagine that you kind of need to keep an even split of allowing the puppy to catch the toy and keeping it away from them.....otherwise they'll lose interest from either a) not being able to catch the toy or b) having the toy too much and getting bored with it...



And I would like to do advanced obedience with Minna; so I would like a more formal heel at some point. I am happy with where she's at now though, she's doing pretty well for being 4.5 months old.


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## DCluver33 (May 27, 2010)

VChurch said:


> I imagine that you kind of need to keep an even split of allowing the puppy to catch the toy and keeping it away from them.....otherwise they'll lose interest from either a) not being able to catch the toy or b) having the toy too much and getting bored with it...
> 
> 
> 
> And I would like to do advanced obedience with Minna; so I would like a more formal heel at some point. I am happy with where she's at now though, she's doing pretty well for being 4.5 months old.


it takes a while to teach heel some dogs get it right away and some it takes awhile my dog's two and he's not quite there yet and my other dog is 12 and she's still learning how to heel lol (she's slow)

you do want to keep an even split with the flirt pole I was just posting from my experience with my own dog now he goes gaga over the thing lol


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## DJEtzel (Feb 11, 2010)

VChurch said:


> And I would like to do advanced obedience with Minna; so I would like a more formal heel at some point. I am happy with where she's at now though, she's doing pretty well for being 4.5 months old.


I would suggest NOT luring then. 

A competition heel can take years to master. Frag's been working on it for a year and can only get 3 or 4 steps with attention. Luring will only make it take more time, imo.


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