How to Teach Leave It and Drop It (They Are Two Different Skills)

Leave it means do not put that in your mouth. Drop it means open your mouth and let go of what is already in there. Those are two different behaviors and they need two different words, taught in two different sets of sessions. If you use one word for both, your dog will hesitate at the exact moment you need him to be fast, because he does not know which job he is being asked to do.

Teach drop it first. It is the emergency skill, it is easier for the dog to understand, and it fixes the habit most owners have of chasing their dog around the living room.

Teach drop it as a trade, not a removal

Everything about drop it goes wrong when the dog learns that letting go means losing. So the first two weeks of drop it training are not about obedience at all. They are about building the belief that giving something up pays.

1. Get two identical toys, or a toy and a handful of something good like chicken or cheese.
2. Let your dog take the first toy. Let him actually have it for five or ten seconds so he feels ownership.
3. Say drop, once, in a flat voice. Then show the second toy or the food. Make it move. Movement matters more than value.
4. The instant the first toy leaves his mouth, hand over the trade and mean it.
5. Pick up the first toy while he is busy with the second. Repeat.

Ten reps per session, two sessions a day, for five days. That is about a hundred reps before you ever ask for drop it on something the dog actually cares about. By rep sixty most dogs will spit the toy out on the word alone, before you produce the trade. That is the moment the word is real.

Once the word works on toys, start using it on lower value real items. A sock. A shoe. An empty water bottle. Trade every single time for the first month. After that you can trade about half the time, which keeps the behavior fast because he never knows which rep is the paying one.

How to teach leave it

Leave it is impulse control at a distance from the object. The dog never gets the thing he was told to leave. He gets paid from your hand instead. That distinction is the whole lesson.

1. Put a treat on the floor and cover it with your hand or shoe.
2. Say leave it, once. Wait. Say nothing else.
3. Your dog will nose, paw, and dig at your hand. Ignore all of it. Wait for the moment he backs off or turns his head away, even half an inch.
4. Mark that moment with your marker word and pay him from your other hand, away from the floor treat.
5. Reset. The floor treat stays on the floor. It is not his, ever.

First session, most dogs need forty to ninety seconds to give up on the first rep. By rep five that drops to under ten seconds. Do eight reps per session, twice a day. Inside four days you should be able to uncover the treat, say leave it, and have your dog look away from it.

Adding distance, movement, and the leash

A dog who can leave a treat under your shoe in the kitchen cannot yet leave a chicken bone on the sidewalk. You build that in this order, spending two or three days at each step before moving on.

• Uncovered, still, on the floor. You are standing right over it.
• Uncovered, with you two steps back. Your body is no longer the deterrent.
• On leash, walking past it. Approach at a normal pace, say leave it about six feet out, keep walking. Do not stop and stare at it with him.
• Tossed items. Roll a treat or toy across the floor. Movement makes the exercise ten times harder.
• Outside, on a long line, with real garbage. Set it up on purpose in your own yard so you control the first outdoor reps.

What it looks like when it is working

The tell is not compliance, it is the head turn. A trained dog does not freeze while staring hard at the item, vibrating. He glances at it, then looks up at you, then walks on. That look back at you is called a check in and it is the behavior you are actually paying for. If your dog is obeying but locked onto the object, he is white knuckling it and he will fail the first time you are distracted.

For drop it, the tell is speed and no retreat. He opens his mouth within a second and he does not carry the item three feet away first. If he is walking off with it before dropping, you have been taking things without trading and he is telling you so.

The three mistakes that undo this

• Repeating the word. Leave it, leave it, leave it teaches your dog that the word is background noise and that the third one is the real one. Say it once, then wait as long as it takes.
• Chasing. The moment you lunge for the item, you have turned it into a game with a prize. Stand up, get a trade, and call him to you instead.
• Only practicing with boring objects. If every rep has been a rubber toy, the word has never been tested. Practice with the socks and the tissues and the kid toys, on leash, on purpose.

When to skip the word and use the leash

Here is the part most trainers will not say plainly. If your dog has something genuinely dangerous, a cooked bone, a rock, a medication off the floor, do not spend that moment training. Get a trade in his face, or take the collar and lift the leash to move him away from it, and clean it up. Training happens in the ninety nine planned reps. The real emergency is where you spend what you built, and if what you built is not there yet, you manage the situation with your hands and your leash instead of your voice.

Both of these skills sit on the same base: a dog who will disengage from something interesting and look at you. If that base is shaky, build it in ten minute blocks before you worry about garbage on the sidewalk. My free 10 Minute Foundation blueprint lays out exactly which reps to do each day and in what order, and you can grab it. Download the 10 Minute Foundation blueprint

Ready to train your dog?

Every drill in this article comes from the WorldWide K9 Academy course library. If you want the full step by step system, start with the $5 intro course.