Teaching take and drop for energetic dog

[Eleonora]

My friend would still like to add/ask something:

First generally about this. This is what made my friend confused: my friend has seen some videos about this. In them the trainer first puts a treat somewhere and says: leave it and after a little time says for example: Ok, get it.

You are right, there are 2 methods of teaching 'leave it' with 2 slightly different meanings. The best way is to use 2 different words. For me I say 'wait' if I the dogs will get the treat as 'wait' means something else will happen. So if you are teaching 'leave it' means never touch use a different word to teach 'don't take' / 'take'...

You are saying that my friend should use two cues. So, my friend should actually teach three behaviors: leave it, wait/take it. It seems that wait and take it should be teached together? So, the question is now: should my friend teach first leave it OR wait/take it?

My friend already knows how to teach leave it (where the dog doesn't get the treat) and she has sometimes tried to teach it. She just found a tutorial about that another behavior (where the dog gets it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSqGMs-eFB8

Note: in that tutorial trainer doesn't use verbal cues yet. Whatever my friend is teaching it works with Lotta because of this:

This is not only about Lotta: Lotta often concentrates on something else (in this case on playing with a toy) and behaves sometimes like no one has said anything and like she wouldn't "hear" anything like those dogs in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9hy174JVro Lotta behaves often that way also in training.

In that case those cues are not going to mean anything to Lotta. Note: Lotta is not deaf although she behaves like she was.

If someone could tell where my friend should begin, she could try something. After that she could tell you about it later.

 

[Caro]

No, you aren't teaching 3 behaviours. You are teaching

1. Here is something don't take it yet
2. Take it

Your friend needs to decide the words she uses. If she already knows 'don't take it' great, but before you say 'take it' you need to say the 'don't take it' first. This is so the dog learns to put the item in it's mouth, otherwise dogs will often just nudge the item you offer and not know to put it in their mouth. The video link isn't much help as it's teaching something different and you need to teach the commands.

After she gets the command using treats you need to swap to another item - a stick, a ball, a piece of material, whatever - and do the same thing so the dog will put that thing in it's mouth.

When you teach 'give' you take the item from the dog and give her a treat in exchange.

Honestly this is becoming very difficult. I have spent more time explaining this than I spend in class - and those people pay for the advice! It is time your friend went to classes - this sort of thing is much easier to teach in person and it sounds like you will do much better with visual learning. Youtube is not a good place to learn how to train.