“Leave it” is a very useful command. It can help protect your dog from eating something unhealthy, poisonous, or just plain gross. It can also help prevent an unpleasant encounter between your dog and a strange dog (or other animal).
The goal here is to get your dog to focus on YOU, rather than the thing that he wants to chase or investigate.
- Enlist the help of a friend who has a dog that your dog is familiar with. Friend and dog should walk on the opposite side of the street. (Pick a quiet, low traffic neighborhood if you can.)
- Before your dog notices the other dog, give the LEAVE IT command and change directions.
- If your dog follows you immediately, heap on the praise! (Treats are a good idea, too — they’ll at least get your dog’s attention.) If he doesn’t follow immediately, you may need to start over with the other dog farther away.
- Practice this again and again, having your friend approach from shorter distances, and eventually from the same side of the street.
Eventually, you should be able to keep control over your dog even if another animal passes only a few feet away. Practice in different places and with different dogs until your dog can focus on you and only you in any situation.
It is best to catch your dog’s attention with the command BEFORE he gets excited and distracted. That means you need to be alert, watching for things that can potentially set your dog off. You can use the LEAVE IT command for attention before your dog even notices that there might be something going on.
A friend of mine who has a pair of pit bulls told an amazing story about this command. A neighbor was making negative comments about the breed — while letting her own dog run around without a leash. The neighbor’s dog actually ran up and knocked my friend down with an enthusiastic greeting. The neighbor then told my friend that no dog could be well controlled without a leash on.
To prove the neighbor wrong, my friend let one of her dogs out. As expected, the dog went running towards the stranger and the strange dog.
Before her dog got too far, my friend gave her version of the LEAVE IT command. To the neighbor’s amazement, the “uncontrollable” dog stopped short and went right back to her owner.
THAT’S how useful this command can be.