The "drop it" cue will trigger your dog to open their mouth and drop whatever they are holding. Use this skill when you need whatever is in your dog 's mouth to... no longer be in their mouth. This could be for safety reasons, gross-out reasons, money-saving-reasons, or play reasons. A chicken bone, poop, your computer charging cable, a toy, you name it.

Tools Needed

• small, high-value training treats
• a tug toy and/or a fetch toy

Focus

Before we get to the specifics, here are four basic principles to apply to any skill you’d like to teach your puppy:

Set your puppy up for success.
Meet your basic needs and your puppy’s basic needs before you begin training. Make sure both you and your puppy are feeling safe, comfortable, and secure in your surroundings. Work in a place where both of you can focus and at a time of day that works for the two of you. Make sure you have all of the tools you need.

Remember that your dog is a very good dog.
Dogs are an entirely different species from humans, with a different set of social rules, environmental affordances, developmental milestones, and genetic mandates. It is imperative to remember that most human rules are not inherently reinforcing for our canine companions.

Teach your puppy to love the behavior you want to see.
The fastest way to teach a puppy what is acceptable in our human world is to teach them to genuinely love our rules. Help your puppy love goal behaviors by rewarding those behaviors with things your puppy already loves.

Start at the beginning.
Start easy, and gradually work through challenging but achievable goals. When training is easy and fun, your puppy will love to learn and to build on their skills.

When to Train

Work on this behavior when your dog has had all of their basic needs met, when they are ready to learn, and when they are more likely to offer relaxed behavior. Skills must be learned before they can be used.

Where to Train

Start in an environment that is already very familiar and comfortable for your dog , with few/no distractions. You will only change location as a part of "proofing" the cue.

Before You Get Started

Your dog should have a history of trading for treats, meaning when your dog has picked up something "illegal" in the past, you have always traded them for the item with a very high-value treat. Puppy-proofing is best, of course, but those puppies are wiley and life just happens sometimes. If your dog has a negative association with you taking things from them and exhibits reactive or guarding behavior, work with a professional trainer to positively address the issue.

Capture the Behavior, Option 1: Tug

• Solicit your dog to play tug with one of their favorite tugging toys.
• After a couple of good tugs, let go of your end of the toy and be boring. (Do not say "drop it" yet!)
• Wait for your dog to drop their end of the toy.
• Click with a clicker or mark with a "YES!" the moment your dog opens their jaws and then give them a small, high-value reward.
• Repeat!

✔️ Keep in Mind
If your dog won't accept the invitation to play tug, make the game more fun. Be animated, be silly, be playful.

If your dog won't let go of the tug item when you drop your end of the toy, try the exercise again, but with a lower-value tug toy or less exciting game of tug.

If your dog is obsessed with tug and it's pretty much their favorite game in the whole wide world, the reward could be the "life reward" of starting another game of tug (instead of a food reward).

Capture the Behavior, Option 2: Fetch

• Solicit your dog to play fetch with one of their favorite fetching toys.
• When your dog returns with the toy, wait calmly until they drop it. (Do not say "drop it" yet!)
• Click with a clicker or mark with a "YES!" the moment your dog opens their jaws and then give them a small, high-value reward.
• Repeat!

✔️ Keep in Mind
If your dog won't accept the invitation to play fetch, make the game more fun. Be animated, be silly, be playful.

If your dog won't let go of the fetch toy when they return, ignore them and just wait. Be patient.

If your dog still won't let go of the fetch toy when they return, trade the fetch toy for a high-value treat and try the exercise again, this time with a lower-value fetch toy or less exciting game of fetch.

If your dog is obsessed with fetch and it's pretty much their favorite game in the whole wide world, the reward could be the "life reward" of throwing the toy again (instead of a food reward). A variation of this is called "Two Ball Fetch," where you throw a second ball the moment your dog drops the first one.

Name the Behavior

When you capture a specific behavior that your dog has offered with a click/treat or a "yes!"/treat, you increase the chance of your dog offering that behavior again. Why? Because it is advantageous for your dog to repeat behaviors that are paired with rewards. All animals' brains are wired this way. After all, if an individual is neurologically motivated to repeat rewarding behaviors, that individual will be more likely to age to sexual maturity, breed, and continue their genetic line. Animals want to do things that work.

So, if the moment your dog opens their jaws is marked and paired with a delicious treat, your dog 's brain will subconsciously encourage your dog to do that behavior again.

At first, your dog won't even be aware that they are subconsciously motivated to repeat a specific behavior. they will instead just... start doing it more. Eventually, though, your dog will consciously figure out that intentionally offering a specific behavior earns them a reward.

This "lightbulb" moment is really fun to watch. It's amazing when it dawns on an animal that they have control over their environment. "Drop what's in my mouth and I get a piece of dehydrated rabbit?! Well hot damn, that's awesome, I am going to drop things again and again and again and again."

At this point (and only at this point!), you can start pairing the words "drop it" with the action of your dog opening their jaws. If you do this successfully between 30 to 50 times over the course of a day or two, your dog will understand that the words you keep saying before they does a specific behavior is the cue for that behavior.

✔️ Keep in Mind
The most common mistake people make is trying to add the cue too early. It's important to remember that dogs do not naturally know what the sound "drop it" means when it comes out of a human's mouth. Saying "drop it" to a dog who won't let go of something will only pair the words "drop it" with the behavior of... whatever the dog happens to be doing at the time (which is, presumably, not dropping anything). Instead, say "drop it" when you are willing to bet $50 that your dog is going to immediately open their jaws regardless of anything you say or do. Be sure to wait until your dog is enthusiastically offering the behavior over and over again before thinking about adding in a cue word/signal.

Another common mistake is for a human to repeat the cue multiple times before their dog offers the desired behavior. The goal, though, is to teach your dog that the words "drop it" mean dropping the item in their mouth... and not the words "drop it drop it dropppppp ittttttt." Say the cue once, wait for the behavior, and click/treat or "YES!"/treat. If your dog doesn't offer the behavior, darn it, you just lost $50. Take a step back in training by getting the behavior to reliably repeat before trying to pair the cue again.

Proof the Behavior

To "proof" a behavior is to help a dog generalize and group variables. Your dog needs to learn that “drop-it” means drop-it, in all different locations, with all different items, and under all different circumstances. Even though it may seem obvious to our human brain, a dog who can drop something in their house may not inherently understand that the words "drop it" mean to drop something when they are in the front yard. Just with a simple change, the antecedent has drastically changed for the dog and the dog no longer understands the cue.

Added to the mix with the "drop-it" cue is the necessity of a very strong reinforcement history of the behavior. Without a strong association between a successful "drop it" cue and Good Things for your dog , they will likely say "nah" when you ask them to drop something your dog likes. In this way, this cue is similar to recall: you've got to pay your training dues. The more often you train this skill with low- and mid-value items (and a few high-value items mixed in, as possible), the more cache you will have in your "drop-it bank account" when you really, really, really need your dog to drop something.

When you proof a behavior, you must constantly ask: how can I set my dog up for success? How can I manipulate the environment in a way that allows my dog to know or to learn 

what I am asking of her? What elements of the antecedent can I gradually change to help my dog generalize a behavior? What elements of the antecedent are unchangeable and should prompt me to shift my training goals or expectations?

Lesson Activity

Recommended Media for Drop-It

• Watch: The Fair Trade Approach to Teaching a Dog to 'Drop It," Fear Free Happy Homes
• Read: "What vending machines can teach us about training "come" and "drop it," School for the Dogs (The trainer here in this article uses a different method. If you are working on capturing the skill, as above, and it's not working for you, consider this method. The trainer here leans primarily on classical conditioning (training by association), as it is a good alternative.)
• Watch: How to Teach Your Dog "Drop It, Sarah Walsh (This trainer uses yet another method to get the behavior: luring with a treat and "fading the lure" by using life rewards (a toy) as a reinforcer.)
• Nerd Out by Listening: The Game Within the Game: How to Multiply Your Dog's Reinforcements, Susan Garrett, Shaped by Dog (This podcast episode isn't necessarily about "drop it," but it does illustrate the importance of gamifying everything and using toys as rewards. When we create a game called Drop-It, our dogs are going to want to PLAY… and, in doing so, do what we have requested.)