Teaching "Leave-It"

Photos and Text by Butch Goodwin
Published in The Retriever Journal 
June/July 1998

hanksgiving has traditionally become a day of family, food, and TV football. All that would come later. The morning's duck hunt had been pretty poor, so I had decided to take my chances on the nearby public-hunting area before the obligatory attendance at dinner.

   Typical of most managed public hunting areas where pen-raised birds are released and restocked, it is either a decent place to work a dog and put up a few birds or a miserable walk through heavy cover and mud, depending on the day. Usually, I could get some good dog work done and shoot a couple of roosters in a short time.

   I have come to realize over the hears that very few hunters on public-hunting areas have dogs that are good hunters, much less under control. I have learned to bite my tongue and keep quiet when I encounter out-of-control dogs. I guess that they are just a reflection of the owners. But, I do get upset when I find birds left crippled or dead that a trained dog could have brought to bag. Just that morning while duck hunting, my bitch had recovered two ducks, one a hen mallard and one a hen merganser, floating in the river. These birds had been shot upstream and left to float down the river, either because the hunter was hunting with an untrained dog or no dog at all. It happens more frequently than I'd like to think about.

   Now, as we hunted this public-hunting area on Thanksgiving day, my two Chesapeakes had found and recovered four dead birds. One of the birds was of questionable ancestry due to its state of decomposition. The three that I could identify showed signs of having been shot and not recovered. One of the birds was a coot, one was a hen pheasant, and one a hen mallard. Now understand, shooting hen pheasants in Idaho is against the law, but I guess accidents happen.

   While I was taking a break and sitting on the ditchbank, a cursory examination of the mallard revealed a broken wing and numerous shot holes in her neck, breast, and head area. Like the other birds that my dogs found that day, she had been dead for several days and would end up as some passing coyote's Thanksgiving dinner.

   Off to my right approached a hunter and a youngster along with a dandy female black and white springer spaniel. After exchanging the usual greetings, they asked about the hen mallard on the ground. At about that time, the springer snatched up the hen and began playing keep-away from her owner. As the man and the boy made numerous lunges at the dog, it became apparent that his dog was untrained and very much used to playing this game. My two Chesapeakes, one lying down and the other sitting, ignored the entire scenario. I think my dogs were more interested in getting back to hunting.

his incident got me to thinking on how easy it is to teach a dog" leave-it" and walk away - even from a dead, stinky carcass. It is an exercise and command that needs to be added to the training regimen for every hunting dog. This particular springer had been "taught" that if she would pick up something and stay just out of reach, someone would chase her. Obviously, her genetics told her to "fetch"; now she needed to be taught where to bring the object and to "drop-it" on command and then to "leave-it."

   How many times have you seen a dog continually sneaking into the duck blind and stealing the shot birds? I'm sure that you have encountered dead fish on the bank of a river or a pond while hunting. Dogs love to roll in these decaying carcasses or carry them around in their mouths. Often it turns into quite a circus watching someone trying to get their dog to leave a rotting carcass and walk away from it. It just shows that the essential control is missing. In today's anti-hunting and animal rights world, it is more important than ever before to have a dog that is under control and to build in this control through patient teaching, drill work, and repetition. Yeah, it is easy to just always hunt your dog with an electric collar and burn him off of unwanted objects. But, that isn't as permanent as teaching it right the first time. Let's start right now, and we'll learn how to teach your hunting dog to "leave-it" so that he will walk away from almost anything on command.

   Force-fetch is a great learning experience for every hunting dog because it is not only about fetching, it is about life for a dog. If trained right, he learns the rules of the road that he is going to have to live by throughout the rest of his life, and he'll come out of it more reliable and more enthusiastic in all situations. It is the springboard for almost all training that follows

he way that I teach the command "leave-it," it is necessary to have the dog adequately force-fetched so that you always have the "fetch" command to fall back on should the dog stop fetching altogether. I like to use a prong collar and a lead rope of about eight feet for this entire drill.

   Start with a walking - "fetch" drill in which the dog should be walked on a lead and a bumper flipped out behind your back. Take a few more steps (about five yards) and turn 180 degrees, now walking back toward the bumper on the ground. Tell the dog to "fetch" and expect him to dive to the end of the rope and snatch the bumper off of the ground and return to the "heel" position, holding the bumper. If your dog is not consistent and enthusiastic at this, then go back to force-fetch until he is.

   After a dog is fetching consistently for several days and reliably and enthusiastically diving for bumpers on the ground on the command to "fetch," I use  a drill that I call "fetch/leave-it." This drill is the basis for teaching the dog to "fetch" when told and leave the bumpers when told to do so. Let me explain.

   When you feel that the above walking - "fetch" drill is solid, it is time to move on to putting bumpers on the ground and having him "fetch" them upon command. Put four or six white bumpers on the ground about three or so yards apart. Place them like railroad ties and spaced fairly evenly. Walk your dog over the bumpers and command him to "fetch" each one individually. He should enthusiastically "fetch" each bumper and come to the "heel" position holding it. (Don't worry if he skips over one and grabs the wrong one - the idea is to have him understand to "fetch" each bumper, individually, when commanded.) If he doesn't, you need to reinforce your force-fetch process.

   This is the test of your dog's understanding that he must retrieve or must leave whatever he is commanded: a bumper, the dead bird, t he pop can, or the live bird. It is necessary to reinforce the "fetch" command or "leave-it" command until the dog does the drill without question. It is only at this point that he is truly reliable and can be trusted to go into the field or sit beside the blind and, without question, leave any objects or birds alone and walk away from them when commanded to do so.

The End

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