No dumb questions. It drives me absolutely up the wall when educators make fun of things they’ve been asked or stuff people didn’t know - especially when it’s their job to be a friendly, approachable resource on a topic. I’d say one in five asks that WADTT gets starts with ‘sorry if this is a dumb question’ and I saw another thread full of people making fun of dumb questions this morning, so, I figured it was time for a reminder that I don’t operate like that.
You probably want to train a ‘trade’ cue with your dog - here’s a good resource on how to do that. The goal is pretty much to have your dog be willing to drop whatever thing they’ve got willingly in exchange for something else high value, rather than try to hold onto it and make you pry it away from them. It’s a more positive and more reliable method of getting things back, and it will help circumvent the tendency of a dog to chomp down on a fragile crayon when they don’t want to give it up.
