Service Dogs Blogs » Rudy’s Tasks

Take it, Bring it, Drop it

During toy play when he was a young puppy Rudy learned the concepts of “take it”, “bring it”, and “drop it”. At about 10 months of age I began substituting toys for items I commonly drop and immediately Rudy began to generalize the concepts he learned through toy play and succeed with item retrieval. Due to lack of strength, limited range of motion, and high fatigue and pain levels from Arthritis, I cannot handle heavy objects. So Rudy can bring most anything I drop…potholders, writing and eating untensils (no knives of course), checkbook, calculator, purse, medicine container, etc. He can easily bring small books, magazines, and notepads, by grasping the bindings in his mouth. I learned to assist him by using my feet to turn the book or magazine so the binding was in grasping position of his mouth to avoid torn pages. Now he can mostly figure out on his own that the binding is the best part to grab in his mouth. He can even bring our local phonebook, which granted is much smaller than big city directories, but for such a little guy, it is an amazing feat! I get worried about choking hazards and usually refrain from having Rudy pick up tiny items. But Rudy can also bring small items, like coins of any size, and some earrings if not too small. He is geared to picking almost anything up that I drop, which I really appreciate. He readily listens to “leave it” when the item is off limits. Here is an action shot of Rudy retrieving my reacher.