Don't Touch or Leave it

We all know that Bree is a very rambuish puppy of 9 months old.
In the house when she goes to touch something or trys to eat something she is not supose to eat, I will give her the comand of " Don't touch" or "leave it" and she just sniffs and walks away, that is going great, she does not touch things she is not supose to unless I give her permission. (usally) :thumbs up .

But outside is another matter, When we go for walks she does not eat everything she sees, but when we are playing or she is just lounging outside she will eat everything in sight, :yuck: even if it is not good for her. She will looks at you as if "this is mine and you can't have it " I tell her "don't touch", or "leave it" but she will run to the end of the leash (when playing a 40 foot leash) gobbling it up like there is no tomorrow. even when I tell her to sit and stay so that I can approch her to take it out of her mouth it does not work. I have even tried to subitute a cookie for what ever is in her mouth but she eats whatever she has and then expects the cookie. (she can be extremly quick guess I'm too slow).

I am worried that she will eat something outside that will harm her and I would like to get this under control. Is there any hope for breaking her of this "game" or "habit" of hers?? can anyone help me?? this is very fustrating for me :frustrated:

When you say 'leave it' she shouldn't be permitted to even sniff it. What if it were a snake?

She making this a game and perhaps she has learned 'grab something, get mom's attention, get a cookie - FUN!' If she is at her worst on the long leash then she goes back to a shorter leash where you can have more control and success. I would not wait until you are lounging or playing - I would set her up for learning and minding you in advance.

Practice inside with some high value items - get 100% success.

Go outside on a short leash and use the same items to test her and get success. Be sure she is listening to your voice and respecting you before you jump to a longer leash. As you have success you can go to a longer leash.

Through out the day you should be testing her ability to 'leave it'. This allows her to practice good manners instead of making a game out of bad manners.

From there you need to work on the 'drop it' command. She should spit out what ever is in her mouth - what if it were a pill you dropped? She can't keep it - not even negotiable. So now you need to practice having her drop lots of different things from her mouth in the house and then outside the house. Having her on the leash will help to empower your words and ensure success.

Also make sure there are fun things for her to play with when you are playing and lounging. She is probably just very bored and knows this behavior will get a good game started. So GIVE her a good game so she doesn't have to create one on her own.

This is an ongoing problem with Bridie as well Breeze. In addition to tenderfoot's advice I would suggest that you use one command only to avoid confusion. I favour "leave it" over "don't touch" simply because it enforces a positive action.

Mind you when Bridie came out of the bush with instead of her ball, chomping away on half a dead squirrel about the only thing that came out of my mouth was "Gack! Gurg! Garr! " :eek::laughing: