I taught my dog Mabel the “leave it” command during her first week home from the shelter. She learned it in a single afternoon. I should have realized then that a dog that good with one word would eventually become too good with it.
The command came from necessity. Mabel is a small terrier mix with the soul of a garbage disposal. Her loves, in order: me, the mailman, and anything edible that has ever touched the pavement. In her first month she attempted a corn chip fused to a sidewalk, half a sandwich abandoned on a park bench, and a bee. The bee won that round. “Leave it” gave us a fighting chance.
Here is what happened the night the training backfired. I was making dinner and dropped a vitamin on the kitchen floor. Mabel materialized from the next room before the pill stopped rolling. I said “leave it,” and she slammed into a sit, spine straight, watching that little orange tablet slide under the fridge with the calm of a monk who has just achieved enlightenment. I was so proud. I told her she was the best dog in the world. Then I filled her dinner bowl and set it on the floor. And she would not eat.
She looked at the bowl. She looked at me. She sat down next to it and waited, the way she waits by the front door for a walk. Fully present. Not moving an inch.
I said, “Mabel, that is your dinner.” Nothing. I crouched and pointed at the bowl. She glanced at it the way you glance at leftovers you have been warned have sat out too long. Curious and respectful. Not touching that.
It took me a while to work out what had happened. The last command she had heard was “leave it.” In Mabel’s head, the kitchen floor had become a food-free zone, and the bowl was on the floor, and nobody had canceled the order. In our training sessions, “leave it” was always followed by “okay,” the word that meant the thing was safe to take. Dinner had skipped the ceremony. So dinner was not real.
I tested the theory the next night. I set her bowl down and said nothing. Mabel sat. I said “okay,” and she dove in like she had been fasting for a week.
Since then, dinner has a ritual. I set the bowl down. I say the words. That is the entire system, and Mabel is its most devoted enforcer. The longest wait on record is six minutes. I set her bowl down one evening, the phone rang, and I stood there talking about something I no longer remember while Mabel sat beside a full bowl with her tail going, glancing from the food to me and back with an expression that clearly said: I am being so good right now. Please. The food. She never once broke. As soon as I hung up, I said the words, and the bowl was empty in under a minute.
Dogs talk in stares and tail thumps, and once I learned to read Mabel’s body language, the whole ritual made sense. She was not being difficult. She was being thorough. Some dogs wait for a sign from the universe. Mabel waits for a sign from me, and I have decided those are the same thing.