fortunatly Star is pretty good about dropping things if she knows I mean business with my tone of voice. she will hang her head and look at me sideways until I come over. I have taught her "Ucky, drop it!" and usually saying "ucky" will do it. but we started teaching her this as a little puppy, so it's been a command for a long time. Definitely a good one to have them obey. I'm working on "give" wit Sherman, he's much more posessive of food (& prey).