Leave it.

Wow, the leave it command is hard to teach to a mouthy, curious, 7 month old Lab puppy.  Lets just say it's a work in progress.  We've done the exercise with his old disemboweled duck toy, that actually quacks like a real duck.  Very tempting for him.  I noticed if I don't time it correctly, it's too late and he'll go in for the grab.  We're both still learning.  If the "interesting" item is less so, the exercise is obviously easier.

Duke has a habit of picking up illegal items and running around crazily with the contraband in his mouth.  As funny as it looks, it's not very becoming of a well-mannered dog.  Our trainer suggested using the bring command.  He doesn't know this so well.  A big no-no is chasing him around in order to get whatever he has, because that's like a play reward.  Also, given the size of our living room, it would be hard to catch him anyway.  More fun for him, more stress for us.  The problem is that he sometimes picks up pencils and other dangerous/expensive things.  What to do?  He won't listen to the bring command, so am I just supposed to let him run around with a pencil in his mouth?  That can't go wrong...

I guess the obvious answer is get everything off the floor.  Easier said than done.  My sister can't walk, so we put her school books, writing utensils, and CDs on the floor so she has easy access when she's in the living room.  Imagine having to clean up your entire office every time you leave for a break?  Like I said, easier said than done.

Possible solutions:
-keep eyes glued to him (the problem is the original behavior is attention-driven, so this sometimes exacerbates it)
-solidify the place command
-solidify bring, leave it, come
-keep him on a long lead in the house
-practice get it (fetch) more often

None of these solutions are perfect, but we will implement all of them.

Good things we accomplished: 
-heel 4-5 steps/click
-leave it (but he knows when he's being set up)
-automatic down in the place command
-starting the  shake trick (this would be fun to develop into a say hi command)