Walking on leash

[coxmegan80]

New puppy that needs to learn leash manners. How can I teach before he out strengthens me?

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hello,

If your puppy is a large breed, you may find fitting him with a front-attachment harness helpful. This type of harness has a ring in the dog's chest area to where a leash is attached. Examples of this type of harness are the Easy-walk harness, the Sensible harness and the Walk your dog with love harness.

 

To train your puppy to walk nicely on leash, you'll find a guide here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/

 

And more tips here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/pulling-on-the-leash/

 

and here if your puppy tends to pull towards people:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/approaching-people/

 

Puppies also need to be trained to control their impulses, here you can find ways to incorporate impulse control in various settings:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/impulse-control-frustration-tolerance/

 

And of course, make sure you drain your pup's energy through brain games and structured play prior to walks so to pave the path for a calmer mindset.

Feel free to post if you need more specific tips.

Happy training!

[coxmegan80]

This has really helped! He seems to be responding well so far. It will be interesting though when I start to remove the treats as he is very food driven.

One problem I seem to still be having trouble with is that he could be walking nice beside me and catch a sniff of something yummy on the ground and then refuses to continuing walking, and will then pull towards it. We've played the leave it game but haven't perfected it yet, I feel like he might even be too smart for it lol. Is there another game similar?

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Glad to hear he is starting to respond well!

 

Are you working on heeling (where you reward your dog for being in the "reward zone" right beside your leg) or are you working on attention heeling (where you reward your dog for making eye contact?)

 

Regardless, if you are in the introductory phase where you are using food in plain view (the dogs sees it protrude from your hand as a lure), it's important to start fading the lure. You can take baby steps in this too if needed.

 

For example, if we are doing regular heeling, instead of letting the food very visibly protrude from your hand, let it gradually protrude less and less, then keep it in your closed fist and then open your hand to feed it once in heel position, then progress to using your hand (as if food was there) but keep the food in your other hand and feed it from your other hand. This teaches the dog to not depend on the sight of food.

 

If instead we are doing attention heeling, you can gradually start making the food gradually less and less visible from your hand held at eye level by letting it protrude less and less, and then proceed to do the exercise with an empty hand (as if holding an invisible treat), but then feeding him the treat from your other hand hidden behind your back. Once again, the goal is to rely less and less on the sight of food.

 

Usually, if we used food as a lure for brief periods of time, it is quite easy to fade the dogs' reliance on the sight of food. Fading food lures though can get a bit challenging if we have made the mistake of showing food for a long time, as the dog has likely learned that the presence of food is the cue to perform the behavior. If this is the case, it could take him some time to get used to the lack of visible food. The answer is to have patience and to progress at a gradual pace.

 

Now, after fading the food lure (reliance on seeing food to perform a behavior), we still want to use treats to reward the behavior. The general rule is that in the initial stages of training, we give a food reward for every completed behavior. This is important so we firmly confirm in the dog's mind that he is doing everything right. We want to move onto giving treats intermittently only once the behavior is fluent.

You can read about this in the polishing up section.

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/polishing-up-training/

 

And here is how to move to an intermittent (variable) schedule:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/polishing-up-training/fading-continuous-rewards/

 

For the sniffing yummy stuff on walks, here are some tips:

 

-Scan the environment.

I know it's tempting to walk with a friend and chit-chat or look at our phones as we walk our dogs, but especially when our dogs are in the process of being trained, it's important to scan the environment. This means paying attention to things that may be on the sidewalk that our dogs may try to eat, or that might grab their attention. If we can scan the environment well, we may prevent putting our dogs into the position of engaging in behaviors we find troublesome. So for instance, if we scan the environment carefully, we may notice that there is a fast-food wrapper ahead, giving us time to walk at a distance from it, so our dog will be less tempted.

 

- Create set-ups in your yard on in a controlled environment.

One exercise I like to do is this: I place a toy on the ground and have owners practice walking initially at a distance from it on leash. I tell owners to say "leave it" and reward their dogs with a treat as they walk past it. Then I progress to placing on the ground something more intriguing (like a piece of bread or some kibble) and have owners practice "leave its) as they walk by that and reward their dogs with several treats in row that are higher-in value than the stuff on the ground. Then, I progress to leaving a raw hide stick on the ground and have owners practice leave its walking past that and rewarding with a higher-value treat (bully stick, pig ear, whatever dog owners know their dogs go crazy over). Finally, at home dog owners are instructed to practice doing the exercise off leash. The dog is asked to sit stay, the owner is placed at the opposite side with something tempting strategically left on the floor in the middle. Then, the dog is called, and reminded to leave it as he walks/run by and is rewarded with something higher in value (I prefer something that is long-lasting so that the dog can lie down and enjoy munching on).

 

I think if your dog is food-driven and smart, through several reps, he'll decide to "leave-it" because he'll know to expect something far better from you. In this scenario, it's the delayed gratification versus instant gratification that teaches dogs the virtue of controlling their impulses.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Adrienne Farricelli

[coxmegan80]

That's amazing. Will this also help with recalls when distractions are present? How can I train this?

[JMFS]

I've found the easiest way to get recalls with distractions is to make the distractions either less interesting or commonplace, and my recall rewarding. E.g., Gertie used to bark her head off at the waste collectors. I started giving her treats as they were parked outside our gate and telling her, "friend." It took about a month, but she hasn't barked, or even chuffed, at them in ages. The next step is to move that outdoors because proximity increases interest; however, that's a tough one because they come by twice per week and are only there about 45 seconds. It's a tough window to hit!

 

The same can be applied to other distractions. Eventually I'm going to have to get on the bicycle and ride outside the gate while the husband plies her with treats. I may have to have him on the bike instead - she doesn't listen to him very well, lol. The odd thing is that she doesn't so much as flinch when we're walking on the trail and cyclists pass by. This leads me to believe it's possibly something to do with her knowing she's on the leash so why bother, whereas in the yard she has a good distance to run and I have zero, zip, zilch that I can do to stop her. That's why I need to lessen the desirability of the chase. If she knows my calling her = something delicious or more fun she's less likely to care about the cyclists. Oh, and the new thing - the neighbors across the street got goats after I finally got Gertie to stop barking at the neighbor's dogs. Ugh! It's always something with these pooches. :D