"bring it Here" for the dog who gets into everything

[Shamas mom]

Rather than chasing Trixie down to find out what she picked up THIS time, we have taught her "bring it here'

As long as I have identified it as something that will not harm her, I simply stand with my hand out, and say "bring it here" as I would to a toddler. She gets a reward for dropping it in my hand.

She's now stopped randomly running off to hide and destroy things, and now walks past looking at me, to see if it's something I'll ask for. She doesn't quite make eye contact, but she definitely checks in on the sly to see if she can get a payout for this object. She's now also showing me when I ask her "What have you got?" because she knows that either I look and pat her and let her keep it..or I trade it for goodies.

Sometimes I even catch her looking around for things to bring me LOL. TV remotes, phones, and plastic bottles are certain to net a reward if brought to a person. Shoes too. After she ate my $120 work shoes after I took them off from the first work shift since buying them....I decided to reward heavily for shoes instead of having her run off to eat them( I work in a deli now and my shoes smell like lunchmeat)

 

[Lisa]

Yes, the reward for relinquishing an object can be a bit counter-productive . But sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils

 

[MrChew]

Yes, the reward for relinquishing an object can be a bit counter-productive . But sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils

I was just thinking, it's definitely the lesser evil!

 

[Shamas mom]

A little bit lol

When I started it, I was thinking back to when I inadvertently taught shamas to steal water bottles because I hated the crunch, so I swapped empties for food.

But after loosing brand new shoes, and having an Xbox remote chewed on(thankfully it survived because those things run about 75bucks) I decided swapping was preferable to finding the damaged remains of expensive items when I take time to go to the bathroom or do chores. .and it's not like we're leaving things laying around. The remote was tucked under the TV, and a little behind it. The shoes all the way back in the corner, under a table. It's bit frustrating. But it's not my first rodeo with an adolescent determined to eat themselves into the vets office. Angel was as bad/worse.

The culprit