Drop it on command

[Haley, Yeti, and Phin]

Hello friends! I'm embarrassed to say we have never really been able to get yeti to "drop it" on command. I wish we would have worked harder with him as small puppy (he is 1yr 4mo) but we were caught up in sit/stay/come etc. His drop it and leave it are very lacking. He is a better leaver than dropper though lol.
Fast forward to this morning. Yeti got a sock. I seriously don't know where he pulls them out of sometime. He genuinely loves to get socks and make us chase him all around to get them out of his mouth. This morning, for the first time ever (with a sock), he got agressive with me. The whole thing was nearly in his mouth and he growled with teeth. His mouth was shut so tight I had to rip the sock apart to get it out of his mouth.
I was hoping to get some suggestions on what worked with your doodles to get them to drop it (even if it's something so beloved such as a sock or a favorite tennis ball). I get the jist of "drop it," then when dropped give treat but was hoping for other tips and tricks. By the way, he does drop his chuck it all pretty good for us with or without a treat (unless he is tired and doesn't want to play anymore lol) but even that needs a little coaxing (aka "drop it, drop it, drop it!!! All while banging his chuck it stick on the ground). Yeti has show. Aggression before with things such a bully sticks and other high value chews but never with a sock. I'm trying to train him out of it befor his brother arrives!

[Haley, Yeti, and Phin]

I know what you mean! So hard not to snuggle your adorable puppy. It's been hard that's for sure.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Haley, I've been thinking about this for the past 24 hours, and I keep starting responses and then deleting them for fear of offending you. But I think this is important, so I'm going to trust that you "know" me well enough to know that I have only your and Yeti's best interests at heart and would never deliberately offend you. 

For me, the biggest concern here is that Yeti is growling at you and showing you his teeth, regardless of the circumstance. That's just not acceptable. I can tell you that there is nothing in the world I could do that would cause JD to growl at me, let alone show his teeth. Run away from me, ignore a command, refuse to open his mouth when I'm trying to give him a pill, yes, and I'm not proud of that, lol. But not the warnings, which is what the growling and teeth baring are. 

I don't think it's about individual behaviors and trying to figure out if they are "dominant"; I think labels like "dominant" and worse yet, "aggressive", are useless, because everything with dogs has to be put in context. JD would growl & maybe even snap at a stranger who broke into my house, and that would be okay, lol. Some of the most "aggressive" dogs in the world- military dogs, K9s, protection dogs, who can and have seriously injured people- would never dream of growling at their owners or handlers, let alone baring their teeth at them, no matter what.  I think we have to look at the bigger picture, which is Yeti's relationship with you. You have been nothing but a loving, concerned, and conscientious owner, and this is absolutely not your fault, but somehow Yeti has gotten the idea that he is in charge, and that he is allowed to "warn" you to back off, and that has to change. If he's allowed to get away with that, it may escalate. Not to mention that dropping an object on command can literally save a dog's life. 
Although it's extremely hard to follow some of the "rules" in the NILIF program, I think that in the long run, it will make you and Yeti both so much happier in your years together. It will only deepen the bond you already have and increase your mutual trust and respect. I hope you'll give it a try. I truly wish you both the very best. 

[Haley, Yeti, and Phin]

Thank you Karen! I am absolutely not offended at all. I am a first time dog owner (seriously first, never had one growing up and neither did any of my close friends really) and honestly I am completely blaming myself haha. The beauty of the situation is that I am acknowledging the problem and totally willing to do whatever I can to fix it.
I read through the article you sent me last night.
"Petting and attention" is probably our biggest problem area. I honestly had no ide I was doing wrong by my dog for snuggling and kissing on him. My boyfriend and I are seriously 110% guilty of this. We are going to have to work very hard in this department but I think in the long run it'll be great for us all. Something we hate about yeti is his random "I want to play,NOW!" moods. This is usually when he's most excited, getting out of his kennel in the morning. He jumps on our bed and is in our faces constantly. We have to hold him down by his belly to get him to settle and to get him to stay out of our faces (he mostly gives kisses, but every once in a while a nibble sneaks in). We are going to have to start having him ask to get on our bed. I think that's at least a start.
"Games." We don't tug much thankfully. Every now and again he will bring his rig to us but usually looses interest within a minute. It's never very agressive. Because he is a toy distructor, we usually just give him and antler and he has a ball that we play with in the yard. When he really wants to play he is good about dropping the ball so we can re throw it, but after about 10-15 minutes when he is good and tired he usually hoards it and lays down (will put it back in his mouth and move if anyone gets too close). Probably going to have to work on that as well.
"Where does he sleep" & "Crate training"
Yeti has always slept in his crate from night one. Never has spent the night outside of his crate. He doesn't sleep well on the bed (moves every 2 minutes to find a better position lol). I love that he is crate trained. He sometimes eats in there (not too often but he has), but he NEVER goes in to just relax, ever. He prefers to sleep right next to it lol. His crate is in our bedroom though. He cries and cries if he's not in our room. I'm not sure if that's something that will change but I'll give it a shot.

I have been practicing with him to sit before we do almost anything. He's responding well. I put him in a sit/stay, hopefully that is okay. A friend of mine told me their trainer said a key part of training is to try to stop a thought before it even happens. Just about 30 minutes ago I got out of the shower and my shorts were ok the bathroom floor. The door was cracked open with the fan on so the moisture could get out (usually we keep all the doors closed so he can't find trouble) and yeti walked in and grabbed my shorts. As he walked out I said "Yeti drop them!" And he dropped them immediately and walked over to me. I pet him for a second and I noticed his head turn back over to the hall way (where the shorts were) and I said "Yeti!" And had his ball in my hand. I through it in the opposite direction and engaged him in a game of ball instead. This worked well and I'm hoping to be able to "stop a train of thought before it happens" more and more.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It sounds like you are doing a great job so far! 

I personally don't think there is anything wrong with allowing any dog to sleep in your bedroom, in a crate or on a dog bed, so I wouldn't change that. Even some of the harshest old school dog training methods still advocate for allowing the dog to sleep in the same room. 

When i think about NILIF, basically what it comes down to for me is requiring the dog to "earn" everything. 

"Nothing in life is free", literally. There is a "payment" that needs to be made. But the payments can be so small and simple: A sit before they get food. A sit before they get to go outside. Waiting for an invitation to join you on the couch instead of just jumping up there. A sit-stay and a calm demeanor before being allowed to go greet the visitors. Simple.

When I got JD, he was addicted to fetching tennis balls. Truly addicted. He would bring anyone and everyone a ball every minute of the day and night, and keep nudging it towards you, pushing it at at you, dropping it in your lap, etc. He never gave up. It was beyond annoying. More to the point, I had a dog, (albeit, a dog I loved with all my heart), dictating when it was play time, and if it was up to him, it was play time all the time, lol. So it had to stop being up to him and start being up to me. I made a rule that if he brought a ball to anyone without being asked or invited to do so, nobody was ever to throw it for. If he did that, he was insuring that he would not get to play fetch, period. The other part of that was, every day and every night I would sit down in one particular chair in the yard and/or in the house, with a towel in my lap (he'd chew and crunch the balls in between throws so they got all slimy and needed wiping down, lol) and invite him to bring me a ball. Soon I didn't even have to invite him, just sitting down in one of those two chairs with a towel was his signal that the game was on. And since he knew that nobody was going to throw a ball for him any other time if he tried to initiate it, he stopped constantly pushing balls at everyone, because there was no payoff for doing that any more. (Strangers who don;t know the rules are usually still fair game, lol.) 

[Haley, Yeti, and Phin]

Yeti is obsessed with his blue chuck it all. Not the green and not the orange, but the blue specifically and not the light blue the dark blue! He is so picky but he could entertain himself ALL day with the ball. He would probably resource guard it given the right circumstances. He even preferred his ball over us. We noticed if we let it sit loosley on the ground he would go right to it after getting out of his kennel, completely by passing us for it. No kisses or anything!! He would sit on the floor by himself with the ball and if we got off the bed to do anything he would pick it up and go to another spot of the room. We didn't like the change in his behavior when his ball was in the picture so we stopped allowing him to have it in the house. That being said we are the ones who mostly start play with the ball (by grabbing it on our way out the door which he never misses by the way lol).
Do you think it's a good idea to keep his antlers from him? He doesn't guard them (or hasn't yet) but we have them on the ground or bed or wherever he left it last. Should we pick it up and give it to him after he has sat to earn it?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Part of NILIF is that you control all resources, and to do that, you have to control access to the antlers, chews, etc. Put the antler away, and bring it out when you feel it would be a good time for him to have it.

I actually do this with JD for another reason: when it's laying around all the time, he shows no interest in it. He takes it for granted. When I bring it out only occasionally, it's like something new, and has more value to him. 

[Haley, Yeti, and Phin]

Amazing idea!

[Dolly Dykhouse]

Haley I swear that Yeti and Henry P Doodle could almost be twins! Granted there is an age difference but some of thier behaviors are identical. The I want to play NOW, why won't you PLAY with me right NOW is mostly directed to our poor 9 year old puggle in the form of barking in his ear until we all want to strangle Henry. If we didn't have the puggle I could easily see where he would turn this behavior loose on us. He is the same with games and the ball, interested for a few minutes and then off to the next thing. He is the same way with taking naps or even sleeping at night; restless. My trainer pointed out that physical exercise while a necessary outlet for doodles is not nearly as exhausting as mental exercise such as training for 30-45 minutes is more tiring then an hour of running at the park. So I decided to see how true this might be for Henry and one day did the park, letting him play chase with the neighbors dogs and then watched how he behaved after and then the next day we had an hour of formal training. I was surprised by what I saw. The day we went to the park Henry was actually wired after we got home, had a hard time settling and was very restless. The training day? Passed out in the car on the way home and then took a 2 hour nap without moving! I've tried the experiment a few times on my own and training periods always tire him out and I see a calmer Henry then after play/park sessions where he plays like a madman. Man these doodles are so dang smart I seriously need to up my game in order to try and get ahead of him! I think that our trainer spends more time trying to retrain me then training Henry. It was so hard to see that I was sending him mixed messages with my commands that were in direct conflict to getting consistent results.

It's so hard for me to have a steel spine when I look at all that curly fur and big green eyes...sometimes I have to go into the bathroom or turn my back so he can't see me trying not to laugh at something he did that isn't acceptable (like grabbing a sock and sticking his wiggling butt in the air to initiate chase) it's hard not to be a push over with him. My trainer has told me that setting him up for success starts with me. I know that this is true, but there are times I just want to pull all 41# of Henry fur into my lap and let him lick my face off...

You're doing great by the way, like you said, acknowledging the problem and being committed to Yeti and fixing the issues is totally doable.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It's so true that trainers mostly train us, lol. 

I think one reason mental exercise like training tires them out so much is because it requires so much self-control on their parts. When you think about it, a lot of what we ask them to do in training goes completely against their natural instincts, so no wonder it's exhausting!  

[Haley, Yeti, and Phin]

We also learned that metal exercise was best!! Yeti loves to play "find it." I completely agree he seems so much more exhausted after some training then he does after playing. We went to the dog park for 2 hours today and he could have kept going for 2 more hours haha.
You and Karen are so right!! We passed CGC but I'm considering trying to find another class in the area so they can teach me more of how I'm supposed to teach him haha.
Yeti loves LOVES to sit on my lap and it melts my heart every single time. (He seriously just plopped down on my lap as I'm typing this). It'll be heart breaking not have him sit in my lap anymore. Sometimes he just even likes to have his paw on me. I always thought he just loved to be touching me because it made him feel safe haha.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

At the risk of bursting your bubble, lol, his touching you is his way of claiming you, i.e. saying he owns you. If you think of it that way, it will be easier to not allow him to do it, because you will be saying to him, "No, Yeti, I own you." :)

Adina once posted that in response to a post of Jane's about this same subject, when her Murphy was doing this. I'll try to find it. 

[Haley, Yeti, and Phin]

My bubble is completely burst lol but it's no ones fault but my own! I'm happy to be learning this stuff now before it's too late!!