"Leave it"

I know that in my last update I told you about how well I'd been doing with the "leave it" command but since then I've proved to Molly that I can do it even better & she's really proud of me.

When we go out on walks I'm always picking up & trying to eat pieces of litter. Today we went on a short walk to the Scout Hut field when Molly was having a better spell (I also went out with her dad this evening so I have had 2 walks today) & I found & picked up a chocolate bar wrapper. Previously the only way for Molly to stop me eating it would have been to chase me & then try to remove it from my mouth. But today she asked me to "leave it" & I just dropped it!

And this evening while we were playing together Molly thought she'd have a go at asking me to "leave it". She didn't think I'd be able to generalise the command like that yet & that I wouldn't want to give up my toys but I proved her wrong! So we swapped between my 2 favourite toys (Ted & the special tug of war rope that I only ever play with with Molly) & I willingly gave each up & got the other in exchange. I even let go of them both mid tug when Molly asked me to. She was so impressed!

I also listened to Molly's mum when she asked me to leave something today but I ignored her dad, hehe :P Molly isn't sure how he asked me though so she's going to show him how she does it & hopefully I'll soon listen to anyone who asks me to "leave it".

I did however refuse to "sit" when we were out on our walk because the ground was wet. Very sensible I think - I didn't want a cold, wet bum!

I'm also starting to get the hang of (lie) "down" when Molly tempts me into position with a treat - I tend to lie down much more quickly now. Luring me into position for "stand" is still a work in progress though, I tend to bite Molly's fist when she moves it out in front of me with a treat in it! And I'll go into my bed when Molly pretends to throw a treat in there but we've not tried it with just the command (& not the mime) yet.