Dog Training Tutorial: Holding Objects & Clean Up!

This is something that looks really impressive and can also be quite useful. As always, the best way to teach this is to break it up into lots of smaller chunks. A couple of months ago, I made a video on teaching your dog to fetch where I talk about how to teach your dog to hold onto an object. What I like about dog training is that there are so many different ways to teach a dog to do something, and not every method is going to work with every dog. It is our job to be creative and find what approach will be most effective with the dog that we're working with. So today, I want to show you a slightly different method. We're going to clicker train a hold by shaping and rewarding small steps, allowing the dog to figure out what it is that they're supposed to do. Although Solea knows this cue very well, I'm going to use an object that she's not very familiar holding onto, and hopefully demonstrate how we can go about doing this. Initially, I will click even when she looks at or touches with her nose. After a few repetitions, I want her to do something different before I click. Eventually, she puts her mouth on it and she holds onto the object, and this is a jackpot moment. Yes! Good job! Good girl! Good puppy! Very good! Remember that we don't want to discourage the dog by making it too difficult early on. Reward the small steps and make it harder progressively. It might even take a couple of training sessions with some dogs. Yes! Good job! Very good! Yes! Excellent! Once you are 95% sure that the dog will hold onto the object every single time, start to add the words such as hold it. Solea, hold it. Yes! Good job! Hold it. Good job! Hold it. Very good! Also, practice with lots of different objects. Hold it. Hold it. Good girl! Once we see that the dog is quite comfortable doing this, we can start to teach drop it. An effective technique for doing this is to take a treat and put it up to your dog's nose, and this will cause most dogs to drop what they're holding. Good girl! Drop it. Drop it. Drop it. Drop it. You'll know that your dog is ready for this next step once they're able to hold it for a period of time and let go when you tell them to. Drop it. Good job! We can now add the bucket and have the dog stand over it so when they let go, the object should fall into the bucket. Drop it. Yes! Good job! Good girl! Drop it. Very good! I would practice it like this for a few sessions and start to very gradually change where you position yourself in relation to the bucket. If it falls outside, don't click or reward, but instead encourage your dog to try again and make sure to celebrate the moment that they get it right. Yes! Very good! Drop it. Yes! Good! Yes! Good girl! Yes! Very good! Drop it. Good job!