LOOSE LEASH WALKING
Default Eye Contact
If you want a dog that walks nicely on a loose lead, this is the homework you want to really nail:
Since this is the foundation for our lead walking exercise next week, please pick the side that you want to have your puppy on when you are walking. It doesn’t matter if you prefer the left or the right side. Choose what side you’d like your puppy to walk on, but don’t do any walking yet.
Hold the end of lead in the opposite hand to your lead walking side stationary against your body.
Wait for a DEFAULT eye contact which means you are not asking for it, but you just wait. Keep looking at your puppy, so you don’t miss the moment.
When our puppy makes eye-contact, mark it with a ‘Yes’.
Now manœuvre yourself next to your puppy, so they are aligned next to you like little Otis in the video. Do not pull your puppy in position, you just move around.
Then give your puppy a treat from the hand that is not holding the lead. Face the hand backwards like Otis’ dad does in the video, so puppy doesn’t need to leave the position next to you to eat.
Don’t move and start again with Step 3 until your puppy is acing this exercise. What does acing look like? They are sitting/standing next to you without moving around and offer one eye contact after the other.
Once your pup is acing the exercise don’t make it harder but instead practise in a slightly harder environment until they ace it there and then increase the difficulty of the environment again and again.
LOOSE LEASH WALKING
If you can't get your dog to follow you around your house or your backyard, you're not ready to take them for a walk in the real world, which is filled with unpredictable, uncontrollable distractions and stimuli.
Once you can get your dog to walk through your home on a loose-leash, you're ready to go out the front door. As soon as you do, you'll want to stop, wait, and watch.
Give your dog time to take in the environment. Can you still get your dog's attention? Will your dog still offer Default Eye Contact attentively? If not, don't go any further out into the world. Stay put until your dog has acclimated enough that they will be able to focus again.
Train Your Dog To Walk Calmly
FIRST TRAIN AT HOME!
1. Default Eye Contact Off Leash
2. Default Eye Contact On Leash
3. Walk Off-Leash
4. Walk On-Leash
LEAVE HOME SLOWLY
1. Don't Walk - Wait and Watch
2. Walk Back and Forth
The number 1 rule with lead walking is DO NOT REWARD THE PULLING. If your puppy gets to where they want to go by pulling you are strongly reinforcing this behaviour. That's a frustrating thought, I know, because you sometimes have to get places, but lead walking isn't sorted yet, so what should you do? I personally put a lot of effort into getting my pup keen on her toy the second I got her. That meant for me that if I quickly had to get somewhere I could just play with her on my side and she wasn't pulling while I didn't do lead training. This won't work everywhere, always and with all puppies though. So, you need to find what works for you. While you spend multiple sessions a day doing lead training you should still be able to go to the park. There are different options to do this. If your puppy is happy being carried and the park is close you could do this and then just pop them on a harness and a long line. Alternatively you can have them in a buggy or drive them with your car to the park. The same counts for coming into the training location, don't let them pull. You have learned a valuable approach to lead walking in our last session. As long as you put the time into doing the training, you will see great progress. Remember you start with 1 step and then go to 2 and then to 3 and so on in your living room. Once you have reached 10 steps with your pup on a lose lead and stopping as soon as you stop to look at you, you can now go to a harder environment, like your backyard. Start at 1 step again and work your way up to 10. Then front yard, driveway and so on. Make it a game to get to more steps and soon you can make it to the park. :)
Walks with your dog are much more enjoyable when your dog is beside you on a loose leash instead of pulling ahead of you! Loose leash walking is a skill that takes patience, consistency and practice. It’s much easier if you start this from puppyhood.
Equipment - The best equipment to use is a good fitting harness. Check the leash and harness clips to ensure they won’t break. A harness does not encourage the dog to pull unless they already have a prior association of pulling with it and if they do have an association with it, find a different harness to create a new no-pulling association. While loose-leash-walking-training is in progress, drive to the park and use a long line (10 metres) to give your dog sniffing opportunities without pulling on the lead. Watch here how a nice mooch-walk could look like, note: the dog is leading the walk, but can be invited to change direction if necessary. It's a really nice video that hopefully makes you consider a different approach to your outings that are there for your dog. A 20 minute walk where your dog actively uses its nose is as valuable as a 40 minute run and much more appropriate for a puppy.
Follow Me! The principles of loose leash walking are essentially teaching your dog to follow you, not the other way around, and praising your dog for being beside you and focussed on you. They get rewarded for stopping when you stop. Beside you is the best place for your dog to be because that’s where they love to hang out and all the good stuff happens. When dogs pull on the lead they are rewarded by getting where they want to go and we get pulled along behind them. Instead, you want to reprogram your dog’s thought process so that they think having a loose leash is what enables them to move forward.
Happy loose leash walking!
These are some random puppies from class showing their lead walking training in week 6. They walk with their mums and dads on a loose lead and when the owners stop, the pup stops and looks at them. Please note, that technically the pups could be sniffing around while walking. There is no need for them to look up whole time, only when the walker stops.