Teaching the hound to leave a treat on cue
First steps:
- Take a low value (e.g. equivalent of $5) treat, place it on the floor
- Cover the treat with your foot
- Hound will try to get the treat
- When they back off (even slightly) say “yes”/click and reward with a separate high value treat (e.g. equivalent of $50 treat - you can toss the treat away to make it more exciting)
- Increase the distance your dog has to move away to earn the treat
- Add the cue “leave it” when your hound is reliably moving away from the covered treat
Next step: adding in movement of the food as movement is much harder to not react to for most dogs
- Start original leave it exercise with your hound on a lead
- Drop food from ankle height
- Say “leave it”
- Pick up the food and reward the hound with a separate treat
- Gradually increase the height of the drop
- Ensure you prevent the dog from getting the food you drop by having them on lead to set you both up for success. There’s no need to use a firm voice for the “leave it” cue, your normal speaking voice will do just fine.