Get It
Posted on August 3, 2008
weve been working on the command “get it” during my lunch breaks. the get it command is a step in a series of commands i plan to eventually use to teach him to get my medication out of my bag for me. its been relatively easy to teach this command because he wants to put EVERYTHING in his mouth.
the training for this started with games of fetch and learning the touch command. fetch provided him with the base knowledge to retrieve an item and the touch command provided him with a target for his mouth. i chose a new toy to teach the get it command because i didnt want him to have to unlearn a previous behavior associated with his other toys. i chose the toy i did because it was part ball and part tug (a game he enjoys immensely).
we started “get it” off by placing him in a sit, telling him to leave it, throwing the ball and then me saying “OK, get it” while pointing at the ball. he ran over to the ball, immediately placed it into his mouth and ran around the room with it, not even thinking that i might want the item back. i let him get the novelty of the new toy out of his system said “liame come” and then “touch”. he came over to me, touched my hand, i clicked the clicker and he released the toy in anticipation of getting his reward. we repeated this game over and over and over, eventually removing the “liame come” and “touch” commands so that “get it” meant go over to the item and bring it directly back to my hand. i then transferred the game to another object so as to allow him to associate the get it command with multiple objects. first we used an empty pop bottle and then we used a large chunky highlighter (because it was the only disposable item lying around in the room i was in).
i dont know exactly how i am going to train the novelty behavior out of him but i know that it will diminish as he gets older.
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