Training your dog to “leave it”.

At first glance, "leave it" may not be the fanciest trick you teach your dog, but it is incredibly important. Our goal is for you to be able to say “leave it” and your dog stops what he’s doing. We’re going to start with food, but with a little practice you can get your dog to leave the window, stop barking at people or other dogs, and come away from objects that you feel are unsafe.

Before we start, your dog needs to know how to sit. Make sure if you have a puppy or other high energy dog that he’s had plenty of exercise. It’ll be super hard to do this if your dog keeps leaping at you!

All you need for this is a little pile of treats. With my dogs, I sit on the floor with them because they’re so small. Feel free to sit in a chair if you have a bigger dog, this one takes a few tries.

Keep the treat a safe distance away and at eye level.

Step 1: Have your dog sit. You’re going to need a treat in each hand. Hold one hand out at eye level several feet from your dog’s nose with a treat on your palm, like your hand is a little plate. Your dog will probably leap at it. Just close your hand over the treat, taking it away and saying something like “nope” or “oops.”

After a few tries your dog will realize he can’t get the treat by leaping at your hand. Stay patient, he’ll figure it out. But we’re looking for one more step. When you hold out the treat on your hand and he stays seated, wait until he looks away from the treat. Then, immediately say “yes, leave it” and give him a treat from your other hand. Don’t give him the treat you showed him, always give a treat from the other hand.

Practice this step two more times then take a break until later, especially if your dog is young. In other words, quit while you’re ahead. Spend 5 minutes a day once or twice a day on this step until it’s very comfortable and your dog knows what to expect.

Keys to success:

1. At this step, keep the treat at eye level a few feet in front of your dog’s nose.

2. Always treat from your other hand, not from the treat you’ve been telling him to leave.

3. Work for short periods of time – 4 or 5 successful “leave its” in a row should do.

Lower your hand to the floor. (Ninja thought this meant "down" lol)

Step 2: We’re going to do the same thing as step one, but move your hand to your dog’s chest level. If he can successfully “leave it” a couple times, then progress to having your hand on the floor. Believe it or not, every time you change the position of your hand, you need to retrain this a bit. That’s ok, our dogs just don’t think the same way we do. Spend a couple days transitioning slowly from having your hand at chest level to having it flat on the floor.

Step 3: This is the trickiest step. Some dogs are super smart and won’t have a problem, some dogs will completely forget what you’ve been working on.

Put the treat on the floor. Set yourself up for success by
keeping the treat a few feet from your dog's nose.
You can move it closer later.

Practice “leave it” once or twice with the treat on your hand on the floor. Be sure you’re a couple feet in front of your dog so you can snatch the treat away if he goes for it. Now, slowly put the treat on the floor while saying “leave it.” You want him to look away from the treat, hopefully at you but any direction will do. If he lunges for it, pick it up and say “nope.” Put him back in a sit and try again.

It may take a couple tries, but he’ll get it, I promise.

That’s it!

Those are the basics, and you should be able to train this in a week, maybe less if your dog is super smart and you work on it every day.

How does this translate into real life?

There are a lot of foods your dog shouldn’t eat. Have you ever dropped some onion you were chopping? Do you have a toddler that pushes food off the table? I’ll bet you’ve accidently knocked something over or spilled pop on the floor. These are the times that you want to be able to say “leave it” and not have to wrestle your dog away from what he shouldn’t eat.

You can also use “leave it” in other contexts. In our house, it means “please stop barking at the mailman.” Because when you say “leave it,” they know to look around at you and expect a nice treat. I also use it with Mocha when someone doesn’t want him to sniff them or if I drop my chapstick or something.

Such a good dog! 

Turn it into a cool trick:

When we only had Mocha, we did a lot of training with him. If you go back to step 3, you can move the treat closer and closer every time you train. Eventually, we had the treat on Mocha’s paw and told him to leave it and he totally did. One day, my husband lined treats all up both his paws, poor thing. He’s so devoted he just sat very very still until we gave him the treat he had earned. So when people put a treat on their dog’s nose and the dog waits until they’re told to eat the treat, that’s “leave it.”

As a therapy dog:

“Leave it” is one of the key points in a therapy dog test. Your dog has to be able to “leave it” to pass the test. For our test, they put a piece of cheese on the floor and I had to walk Mocha past it twice. He was allowed to look at it, but had to come away when I told him to “leave it.”

He also had to be able to “leave it” when offered food from a stranger. This was hard for him, he’s a very trusting dog, and she offered him more cheese. But we’d practiced and he did listen.

Why is this important? When you’re visiting a nursing home or a hospital, or any other medical facility, there are lots of things on the floor you don’t want your dog to lick up. Patients bleed and throw up and ooze on the floor. They can drop their medications too, and you really don’t want your dog to eat that. People drop random things too, like bits of paper, pen caps, or used tissues. It’s really important to be able to keep your dog away from things that may be harmful, and to keep a sharp eye on the floor when you’re visiting.

A video on “leave it”

Here’s a nice YouTube video by Victoria Stillwell for all you visual learners on how to train “leave it.” Every trainer will be a little different, but the principle is the same. I like her because she only uses positive reinforcement. You may wonder why I don’t use a fist like she did. Honestly, I don’t like to be licked that much. Also, I’ve worked with rescues that would just start gnawing on my hand, and that’s no fun at all. So I skipped that step. If you go to 4:20 in the video, that’s my step 1.

Good luck! And feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Dog sweater knitting patterns

I've been knitting dog sweaters and selling them on Etsy for several years now. 10% of all those sales go to animal rescue.

Recently, I wrote up a few patterns in PDF form to sell. I've listed them on this page on my blog:
http://inspiredbymocha.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

You can see them at the top of my page next to "Home."

I will always give 10% of my sales of this pattern to animal rescue. Always!

You can click the "Buy Now" button to order the PDF, and I will email it to you ASAP.

Check back often, I'm planning on making more patterns!

Here are the two sweaters I have listed so far:

Happy knitting!

The road to becoming a therapy dog

If doing visits with a therapy dog sounds like something you want to do, and you have a dog that would enjoy it, then there's no better time to get started! Unless you've been doing regular training with your dog, it's going to take some time to get there.

Mocha doesn't like to be picked up.
Here he's being held by a stranger,
begging me with his eyes to save him.

Before I tell you what Mocha and I did to become therapy dogs, I want to be clear that this is not for every person and not for every dog. Some dogs are just not interested in people. Some dogs are afraid of sudden noises. Other dogs don't want to be picked up, or hate being touched on the head or the paw. Although I believe that most dogs can be trained to be therapy dogs, there will be dogs out there for whom it's not a good idea.

Also, be sure that you're ready to make therapy visits. Here's an example straight from my life: I can't do hospice, so I can't take Mocha to hospice. I'd cry the whole time and it would make him nervous and the patients uncomfortable. I used to work for hospice (pharmacy) and I know that it just gets me down, and that's not the person they need to see. Mocha and I do best with people who are up and about, functioning semi-independently. He also loves children, and I'd like to get him into a library or school one day. But there are just some situations that we wouldn't be right for.

Basic Training:
You're going to need to take some basic obedience classes before
you really get into the therapy dog training. This could be a puppy class or beginning obedience if your dog is older. Any dog at any age will benefit from obedience class! It's never too late to learn.

Mocha and Ninja both took Star Puppy, which is a puppy obedience class that awards a certificate at the end though the AKC. This class teaches the basics, like sit, down, heel, stay, leave it and wait. You'll want another obedience class after that, maybe Puppy II or Obedience II. These classes get a little tougher. You learn to walk the dog in any direction on either side. You teach them to wait before going through a door and how to greet other people and dogs, and many other skills.

A Little More Advanced:
Mocha and I took a Canine Good Citizen (CGC) class, which prepares you to take the CGC test that's administered through AKC. Not all pet therapy programs require this! However, some training clubs do, it all depends on where you're training and which therapy program you want to get into.

In the CGC class, we practiced walking through crowds of people and dogs. We also learned how to greet other people and dogs nicely. This is key to your therapy dog training! Some people love dogs, some are afraid of them. It's very important that your dog learns to greet people with all four paws on the ground and his tongue in his mouth!

Does your dog cry when he's not with
you? Could you leave him with
someone and walk out of the room?

Mocha also had to be ok when left with another person. I had to be able to leave him for a period of time (30 seconds maybe, I don't remember) and have him behave ok. No barking, lunging or freaking out.

The End Result:
Finally after all this practice we took the TDI test. I didn't take a class specifically designed for TDI, I just went ahead and took the test, but I'm sure you can find classes or programs out there to help finish that last phase of testing for certification.

The very hardest part of this test for Mocha was walking past food without eating it. Of course, it had to be cheese. Mocha loves cheese. But I told him to leave it and he did, because he knows I might have a very super awesome treat for him sometime soon. He also had to be able to resist food offered by another person (at my command). This is really important, especially if you're visiting a medical facility. Patients often drop their medication and the last thing you want is your dog scarfing it up, thinking it's a wonderful cookie.


How long did this take? About 3 years, off and on. We did some agility training in between obedience and CGC, so that helped a lot with his behavior. But last summer I think I spent 3 months specifically working with Mocha so he could pass the test.

So that's it! Remember, not all dogs are meant to be therapy dogs. But, if you think you have the patience and time to train your dog, pick a program and just go for it!

What is a therapy dog?

A therapy dog is a dog that loves people. They go through a lot of obedience training and are often registered with a therapy dog organization.

Therapy dogs are not service dogs. They can’t detect changes in blood sugar or turn on the lights. They don’t guide the blind. They’re just very well behaved, friendly dogs that have an affinity for people.

Where do therapy dogs go?

Therapy dogs visit people in lots of places. Some therapy dogs visit patients in the hospital, rehab or nursing homes. Other therapy dogs visit children at schools or libraries. At University of Akron, there is a program for dogs to go on campus during finals week to help students cope with stress.

It’s up to the facility to decide what type of therapy dogs are welcome and what type of training or certification they need. For instance, the nursing home I take Mocha to doesn’t require any certification. They just wanted a dog that was friendly. Some hospitals, like Akron Children’s, have their own therapy dog program and train the dogs on site. This program is called Doggie Brigade. 

More on therapy dog organizations:

This is where I was most confused when training Mocha. There are lots of organizations. Mocha is registered through Therapy Dogs International (TDI). I chose them because they’re a national organization and their certification could be accepted at many different types of facilities all over the country. (We’ve moved a LOT…) I could also take a training class for TDI and take the test at the club we train at in town, the Akron All Breed.

Summa Hospitals in Akron have their own pet therapy program called WAGtime, and going through this program certifies the dogs through Pet Partners. Pet Partners doesn't just certify dogs, they accept all kinds of animals. You could also look into Paws for People. 

You need to check this FB page out:

My favorite Facebook page is Gizmo’s Frens, and he’s certified through Paws for Friendship, Inc.. I love that little dog. he was my main inspiration for getting Mocha certified.

Do you have a therapy dog? Where do you visit?

Come back tomorrow to learn what it takes to become a therapy dog.

I'm back!

Ok so here's what happened, and it's totally my bad. I was working one full time job and two part time jobs, plus fostering dogs, taking Mocha to nursing homes (he's a therapy dog now) and volunteering with dog training classes. I was too busy, and forgot all about the blog.

But, now I've made a career change! I quit my day job (which was really stressing me out) to be a piano teacher from home. It's awesome, the best job ever. I love all my students, I love teaching them and I love playing the piano. Here's my website for that: Barford Piano Studio

So, now I have the time to invest into Inspired By Mocha a bit more. I've added some new stuff, like bandanas that slip over the collar. And I made my first knitting pattern to sell. I think the biggest move I've made was opening my own shop independent of Etsy--> Inspired By Mocha

I'm still going to donate 10% of the sales from both the Etsy shop and my independent shop to animal rescue. In honor of Teddy (see the last post), these donations will go to the National Mill Dog Rescue--> milldogrescue.org Last year I donated $46. I'd like to more than triple that this year. This is my goal for my shop and this blog, to help those puppy mill rescues.

Training:
I've done a lot of dog training with Mocha and Ninja over the past year. They both have their CGC (Canine Good Citizen) and Mocha is a certified therapy dog through Therapy Dogs International (TDI). I also helped with puppy and obedience classes at my local dog club, and I got a lot of training experience with our foster dogs last year.

I'd like to share some basic training advice on my blog each week. Simple stuff that you can do at home with your dog. I made a big list of topics this week and had a hard time choosing, but I think the easiest to start with is a recall game you can play at home any time.

"Cookie"
Here's how this game works. And it's going to work this way every day for you and your dog from now until forever.

We have a recall word for our dogs. It's a word that they know gets them a treat, no matter when, where, what, how, why, whatever, if I say "Cookie!" they come running for that treat.

You can make this word whatever you want. We thought about making it something silly like "broccoli" or "sassafras," but "cookie" just seemed to fit for our boys.

Step 1: Create the response. Spend a couple days with a few treats in your pockets. When your dog is paying attention to you, hand him/her a treat and say the magic word. (I'm going to use "cookie.") If you do this 5 times in a row 2-3 times a day for a couple days, your dog will start associating "cookie" with getting a treat. Do this for at least three days before moving to step 2.

Step 2: Add a little distance. Have your dog sit and back a few steps away. If your dog doesn't know how to sit and wait for you, then do this when s/he's at the other end of the couch, or when s/he just walks in a room. Say "cookie" and reach out with a treat in your hand. You'll be amazed, your dog will jump right to you. If you dog doesn't respond, go back to step 1 for another day or two.

Do step 2 for a couple days, maybe a week.

Step 3: Hide in the house. Start small here. Go into the kitchen and yell out "cookie." Your dog should come running, and if s/he doesn't, go back to step 2. Make sure you give them the cookie when they come!

Make a game out of this, dogs love games. A couple times a day, when you're in a room and they're not, yell out "cookie."

Step 4: Moving it outside: Doing this in the comfort of your own home is all well and good, but anyone who's done any dog training knows that once you get outside, most of that training goes right out the window. Here's how my husband and I did this (you're gonna need a friend for this part):

Keep your dog on the leash. Go stand in your backyard to start, then move to a park or the front yard once your dog has the hang of this. One person has the dog on the leash, the other takes 10 steps away and faces the dog. Yell out "cookie" as excited as you can. Your dog should come running. Give him/her the treat. Then switch positions. You hold the leash and your friend/husband/partner/whoever takes a few steps away and yells out "cookie."

Just keep increasing the distance. Eventually, you'll be able to have your dog off leash just about anywhere and yell out your recall word and they'll come running.

Here's the catch: Every time you say your recall word, you need to give them a treat. If your recall word is cookie, then every time you say cookie, whether you're saying it to them or in conversation, you'd better give them one. In our house, we say "C-word" for cookie when we're talking about the cookies we eat. Otherwise our dogs are in our face so fast and we have to get off our butts to get them a treat!

Here's Ninja all of 2 seconds after I say cookie.

Try it! Let me know how it goes! And if you have questions or problems, I'll try to help. inspiredbymocha@gmail.com

Hello 2014

Hello everyone! Hope we're having a great 2014 :)

This month, we've had a lovely foster dog, Teddy the Pomeranian. He was a rescue from a puppy mill. He stayed at our house for a whole month, but found his forever home yesterday. We miss him, but we're really happy for him too.

So now what? Both our boys are kinda happy that Teddy's gone, he was too big of a drain on the attention they normally get from us. We're going to do a little more agility soon. Mocha's knees have been hurting him since it's been cold, so we're sticking to Teacup agility until it warms up. I'm also going to put Mocha in a CGC class the next time our All Breed offers one. I think he'd make a great therapy dog :)

Oooohh the other new thing I've been into is Blogilates! It's pilates, but the videos are on youtube and they're free. Oh, and they'll kick your ass real hard lol. But the instructor, Cassey Ho, is super positive and kinda silly, and that really helps me push through the pain. (And oh there's so much pain!) Man if I could look like her.... well I guess I'd have to eat like a rabbit and I like cake so, some things just weren't meant to be.

Here's her beginner's video. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCg_gh_fppI

First OH Craft Fair

Hello world! Did my first craft fair in Ohio last weekend. It was sooooo slow. Unnervingly slow, really. But, we did ok and got lots of compliments! Here's some pics of my setup:

I hung the dog collars on wire shelving from our pantry. And that white box there in the bottom photo was actually a plastic crate that I covered in white packing paper to make it look a little nicer. I'm going to sew a cover for it soon.

They wouldn't let me have Mocha with me because it was an indoor craft show and they were selling food (to the 20 people that came...) so I brought my laptop and had a slideshow playing of Mocha and Ninja modeling the sweaters.

So, now what? We're doing another show, of course! December 7th at the Falcon Academy of Creative Arts (FACA) in Mogodore, OH. Sure hope it goes well!

Also... I opened a shop on Zibbet. It's a website that's really committed to selling handmade, like Etsy used to be. So, here's the link (I'll try to find a widget too): www.zibbet.com/inspiredbymocha

Just a couple things on there, but a super nice community. I'm interested to see how the site does.