Stealing Mittens

[JodiWeigelt]

Hi,

I have an almost 7 month old standard poodle.  He has a thing for mittens!  We have been pretty proactive at home...holding them away from him, asking him to leave it followed by a treat, putting them away.  However, out on a trail, he will often bite at my mittens and try to take them.  If I should be with another person or simply run into another person, he will go straight for their mittens, even jumping to get them.

Suggestions?

[Adrienne]

Hello and welcome to the forums!

It sounds like you are managing the situation very well at home. In the home, you are also training a good response to leave it, which is awesome. With dogs who steal, we may get stuck in the trap of chasing the dog around to retrieve the item which encourages the keep-away game which can make for a bad habit. Teaching leave it and drop it is much more productive. Don't dismiss drop it though as it's your second chance for when you have failed to cue a "leave it" on time and the dog is already carrying something he shouldn't have. Here is how to train it:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/drop-it/

On walks, we would also need to implement some form of management. The main objective of management is preventing rehearsal of the behavior. The more a dog rehearses a problem behavior, the more it puts roots and becomes more difficult to eradicate. We may then get stuck in a habit-forming pattern-in your case, a dog who is eager to go on walks because he associates them with the mitten-stealing opportunity! So I would suggest the following strategies on walks:

-Keeping your hands in your pocket if possible (out of sight, out of mind). 

-Asking the other person if possible to that as well (explain your dog is in training so this is just a temporary thing).  

-If your dog is also interested in stealing the mitten attached to your hand holding the leash, you can maybe consider a sturdy hands-free waist leash (leash that is clipped around the waist often used by joggers) so you can keep your hands in your pocket. 

Now, management works well to prevent rehearsal and can be a temporary solution for when when we cannot actively work on the problem. However, we  may want to work on this issue as well-after all, we can't always stay with our hands in our pockets! So I would suggest continuing the leave it exercises as done at home, since it sounds like he is doing well with that. 

On walks though, your mittens may be more salient because, when you wear them to go out, you move your hands around and therefore, from your dog's perspective, you make them come "alive", turning them into fun "puppets" to play with and movement is what attracts dogs a lot. So we are working on a higher level of distraction compared to mittens laying around in the home.

At first, you will need to create structured set-ups so that you aren't caught unprepared and are better in control of things, so at random times on the walk, get your mitten out of your pocket and practice leave its without moving your hand much, catching him before he even has a chance of thinking about grasping it.  So get your hand out of your pocket very slightly, say "leave it" and toss a treat to the ground from your other hand. Then, start raising criteria (raising the challenge) get your hand out more and more and practice with that, then aim to getting your entire hand out of your pocket and practice with that, and then progress to even moving your hand. Once you get at that point, you can have other people do the same while you practice saying 'leave it."

If at any time, your dog seems to struggle with "leaving it" take that as a sign that he isn't ready for that level of difficulty yet and that you'll need to take a few steps back. It would be important at this stage, being careful in never giving him the opportunity to "steal any mittens." If he has a soft mouth, you can try wearing fingerless gloves that are more difficult to remove, or gloves with a tightening tab versus mittens or at least closing your hand in a fist so that he can't easily pull the mitten off.  Try to not even let him try to get them off, as that's part of the fun. 

At the same time, we also want to move his focus to other things on walks. We can make it a habit of going to a special area and letting him sniff there and then going to a spot where we can organize a treasure hunt,https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/elementary/the-treasure-hunt/ we can also do some attention heeling so that he learns to look at you while your hand with the mitten holds a treat at your eye level. Rather than hand feeding, drop the treat. Never drop the treat if he is jumping-to prevent jumping, try walking at a fast pace: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/

If feasible, we can even organize walks with another dog who will hopefully engage his mind on other things. Or we can invite to alternate engaging activities such as playing tug with tug toy (I like to use real rabbit fur tug toys which many dogs find irresistible), a flirt pole or letting him carry something in his mouth. The goal is to make all of these alternate activities far more reinforcing than mittens. 

At home, we also want to provide more mental stimulation and provide outlets for his needs. Your poodle's mitten-stealing habit can signal a need for certain types of activities. Maybe he may enjoy puzzles that require taking things off or out of things such as taking balls out of a muffin tin as in this game:https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/elementary/the-muffin-game/

or unrolling a rug you use only for this purpose and put it away once done:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/college/the-magic-carpet/

I hope this helps,

Let me know if you have any other questions. 

Best,

Adrienne