Loose leash training is a lost art in our society right now. We have a billion dollar industry of no pull products, by this magic tool and your dog will walk on a perfect loose leash and so we see them everywhere from head collars, two-prong collars to front clip harnesses, two leashes that wrap around all the dog's legs and so we have this explosion of people who are not loose leash training their dog and the unfortunate thing is that almost all of these products create a little bit of stress in the dog, because we haven't taught them how to accept loose leash walking. how do you train a dog to walk on a loose leash?. We have just enforced our control upon. So when we force control on a dog it doesn't teach them how to actually accept that and so if your dog does not understand leash rules that is going to contribute especially to their frustration and maybe even their fear.
Loose Leash Walking Harness
If you are a very poor handler a dog is not going to want you having control of them because they are going to be afraid of that and so if dogs don't see the leash as a mental barrier and just a physical one they're going to attempt to pull through it. So if we haven't taught dogs to actually watch us and watch where we're going and we just use physical controls that's going to be frustrating and how you handle that leash is going to lead to a huge reason why. You may have a reactive dog and if your dog cannot walk on a loose leash without distractions, it's very difficult to expect that they are then going to behave themselves when there are high level distractions around. So our most important aspects is how we actually handle our leash. So the very first rule of our leash is we want to hold it by around the halfway point. So we're gonna be holding our leash by the very end and allowing our dog to have all of this leash to backlash around with.
So we want to make sure that we hold it about the halfway point and the other really important leash tip is we want to make sure that it's loose, so most reactive dog owners actually hold their leash like I'm holding it now which is putting artificial pressure up on the dog. So we want to make sure that we hold our leash actually with our hands right down beside our waist. So there is no pressure that is caused by ourselves and only pressure that would be caused by the dog pulling forward.We also want to make sure that we never use our leash to forcefully move our dogs. So I'm not going to pull Freya around if I want her to move over here I'm going to ask her like I would my friend. I'm also never going to use the leash as a Punisher. So I'm never going to jerk her around if I don't like what she's doing. so we always want to make sure our leash is nice and loose. We’re not jerking the dog around and we aren't giving them too much leash to get in trouble with.
How Long does Loose Leash Training Take?
We also want to make sure that we never reward our dogs by moving forward on a tense leash. So if your dog does move forward and Alisha's tense, we need to do something we cannot allow our dogs to simply forge ahead and learn that it's okay to do that behavior. The other thing is that we want to be rewarding our dogs when they are walking beside us. So when Freya is beside me like this, I want to be either giving her a food reward or at the very least looking at her and smiling and telling her what a good dog she is for being in this position, because this is where I want her to be all the time when we are moving around.It’s also important to understand loose leash walking with distractions that the walk is for your dog it is not for you. So you might get some exercise out of it, but it's really for the dog.
So if your dog wants to sniff a blade of grass, if they want to nibble on a little piece of grass, if they want to check out every tree, you really should consider letting them. You can still guide the dog but you want the dog to feel as free. As possible we don't want to micromanage our dogs and we want our dogs to actually get some enrichment out on the walk. So don't feel like you need to micromanage all of your dog's activities and let them explore and have some enrichment and the last most important thing is that we don't greet other dogs on leash.So a critical skill for reactive dogs is loose leash walking. So many dogs that are reactive do not know how to walk on a loose leash. so it is imperative that we teach them this. So what is loose leash walking really well what it is is a dog who is aware that their job is to watch your body and that your body is actually relevant to where they get to move.
How to Train a Dog to Walk on a Leash Without Pulling?
So it's so important we teach a dog to actually pay attention to us not in the sense that they must focus on us, but that they must be aware of our body. So with my dog she has really great loose leash skills. She’s always walked on a flat collar even though she is 100 pound dog, but if I move around she will follow me without any prompting. So I can move around very easily and she will follow me the whole time without any cues. So she is aware that my body is relevant to where she should go, but you'll notice that the leash always remains loose I'm not putting any pressure on it at all and yet she still follows me in a fairly nice relative heel. Although this isn't important and as soon as I stop that is also her cue to stop. as well again she doesn't have to sit, she can choose the behavior she wants but she has to know that my movement is relative to hers and when she's on leash it is her job to follow me and we should see our dogs doing that off leash as well.So there should be almost relative little difference between a dog who's on leash and off leash, but the on leash dog must be aware that there they can have no more freedom than the extent of the leash. Okay so how do we teach a dog to actually loose lease walk. Well again our goal is to make sure that the dog is aware that our body, movements is relative to theirs in a really nice easy way is to start by walking backwards. So I am going to walk backwards with Portia on a loose leash and I'm gonna click and treat her for following me and coming with me and my goal again is to not have a tight leash at any time. So we're gonna start moving and I'm gonna click and treat her very first movement because I want her following me. Now she's focusing a little bit on the tree pouch. So I'm gonna stop right there and I'm gonna delay the reward a little bit, but I really want her to be following my body.
She’s looking over at the clicker so now she's at least looking at two different places, but one of the things I really like is that she is turning with me when I turn without the leash tightening. So she is definitely following my body again. It’s important now to try to be a little discriminatory and make sure that I click entry when she's looking up in my eyes and I'm not going to click and treat when she's looking down at my pouch. I'm gonna try to have my treat hand up near my eyes, instead of near my pouch as well. So a big mistake most people make is they will have their hand on their pouch the whole time and then the dogs always looking at the pouch and as soon as the treat pouch isn't present your behavior falls apart.So we want to try to keep our hands away from those treat pouches and even put them in a pocket if you find your dog is incredibly focused. So now that we have a dog who's following us pretty nicely backwards.
How to Teach a Puppy to Walk on a Leash?
We need to not walk backwards for the rest of our life. So we are going to switch it, up we are gonna pivot into a left side heel and my new goal will be to then reward Portia for following me on my left side. So here we go, here's my pivot and now we're gonna walk forward and I'm going to reach across and reward her on this end and now the nice thing about this is the treat pouch is now away from her eyesight. So I'm rewarding her for staying in this position my job is to make sure my hand comes out and rewards her before she gets out of position. So if I allow her to get out of position I can simply correct this by turning the dog doesn't have to do the correction I do and then she simply keeps earning her rewards.When you have a reactive dog, it's very important that your dog be in a consistent place. I don't want Portia to end up on my right side when we turn. So I always want to make sure I use my leash a little bit as a guide to make sure that she stays on the left and also that the rewards happen on the left.
So she doesn't ever try to cut over to my right side as we move. So this looks very nice. We're going to start reducing the reward so there's the cut over you saw she tried to go over to the right a little bit. So she corrected herself and I rewarded that. So we don't want a reactive dog doing that cut over behavior and we definitely want to make sure she never practices going out in front of me when she's during that initial stage of walking. So there's the cut over so I'm gonna fix that and there's a nice turn over to my left.So this is gonna be our negative punishment method of making sure that a dog doesn't pull forward again we want to just teach the dog, that lunging towards things they want. Is not a good strategy and so we are still gonna use rewards in the sense that when she is walking on a loose leash she's gonna move forward, but if she tries to lurch out and pull forward. We’re gonna very quickly turn her around we're not gonna choke her we're just gonna teach her as soon as you move forward you instantly move away.
So we're gonna get her teased with the bowl of treats that she wants to get to and we're gonna teach her that pulling forward does not work and I've even taken off my treats so she doesn't just simply follow me because I have rewards on me. So as soon as there's tension I'm just gonna turn her around. you see she comes with me very nicely, she looked, glanced up at me but one thing you noticed about Lucy is she's not really looking at me. So she doesn't really think I'm part of this walk there's a nice little glance. We’re getting farther each time but we really want to watch her understanding that my body is relevant to her motion. So she really needs to learn that and she is glancing up there's a, nice little look a little closer each time and again we want the dog to have success very quickly nice. So I'm going to move a little quicker and let her have some success. So she doesn't get frustrated, but I really would like to see her walk on a nice loose leash with me. So this is not something that you can do in just a few trials. It will take some practice, but we definitely want the dog looking up at me a lot more so we're seeing that when we get started. I hope you have found how to train a dog to walk on a leash beside you in this articel, and you can make starting fast.
No comments:
Post a Comment