Teaching a Puppy to Leave it to Stop if From Chewing up Another $3,000 of Things
By: David Codr
Published Date: February 14, 2020
For this Omaha puppy training session we taught 6 month-old German Shepherd puppy Elsa (Pictured here with 3 year-old Yellow Lab Alice) the leave it command to prevent her from chewing up another C-Pap, Oculus Virtual Reality machine or other expensive items.
When we arrived for the session, we could instantly see these dogs desperately needed energy released. Elsa is a very high energy puppy and Alice isn’t that far behind.
The first thing we did was share some tips on how to burn off some of that excess energy. Until the guardians start burning off that excess energy on a regular basis, its going to be very challenging to fix their dog and puppy behavior problems. When the dogs are “naughty,” they need to do some stairs. When they are pushy to ask for attention, they need to play fetch. When they start nibbling on things, more exercise!
Once the dogs are sufficiently exercised, they need to start practicing some self restraint or control via common, day to day activities. Teaching them to sit and be calm when being leashed up, wait for permission to exit an open door, stop jumping on people when they arrive, or to eat in a structured way are all great ways to help these dogs learn some self control.
Taylor took a few moments to teach the puppy the leave it command so that the humans can disagree with the puppy or dog before or as they start to get into the wrong thing.
Training a puppy to leave it is one of the more helpful commands you can instill as puppies get into everything. With some practice, the humans will be able to give a verbal “leave it” command and stop the puppy from chewing or destroying things the humans would like to have for later.
The wonderful thing about all the dog and puppy training tips we went over is that anyone can practice, even if you aren’t a professional German Shepherd puppy trainer or specialize as a pro Yellow lab dog trainer to do them.
Now since Elsa is a puppy, its going to be hard to keep her out of trouble without some help. I STRONGLY suggested the humans set up a Long Term Confinement Area in the upper room and have Elsa sleep there, eat there and be left there any time she can’t be supervised, or when the humans need a break. This will help solve or prevent so many problems, I don’t think any client we have ever worked with will benefit from it more.
We will be helping Elsa with our Puppy Classes next month, but in the mean time, I recorded a roadmap to success video to help them remember all the tips we covered in this in home Omaha puppy training session.
Categorized in: Puppy Training