Feedback and advice about pulling on the lead

[SianNewman]

Hi Adrienne, hope you are well.

I wanted to provide some feedback with regards to something you helped me with a while back. I adopted a failed sheepdog from a farm called Brenin, and he was sniffing my daughter in her private areas quite a lot! So you advised that she use hand targeting and got involved with his training and it has worked really well. Now when she comes downstairs (usually with a treat) he looks to her for a command instead of sniffing her which she is getting quite good at! My son has also started training with him too. We were having a few other problems with him, when the kids hugged us, he became intense and agitated, but that has stopped too since they have been interacting with him more. There are a few little things he does, like when my daughter laughs, he reacts by running up to her but I have read your answer to the coughing/sneezing reactive lab so I'm going to follow that advice. He's not aggressive but it is obvious he is startled and is not sure what to do.

With regard to the Brain Training he is progressing really well and comes up to me to do more of it at certain times of day. He LOVES free shaping and can't get enough of it. We will continue! I'm amazed at how well he is doing.

So out on walks he is reactive to pretty much everything that moves so I have been getting him to sit and go down to the ground when we see anything coming and he gets a treat once the thing has passed. He's getting very good at that now and today sat down without me asking him too. My main question is about the lead pulling. We have been doing attention heeling and when he is under threshold he will do attention heeling for about 12 seconds and then goes back to pulling again for about 30 seconds (or longer) then he will come back to my side for 12 seconds and then go back to pulling again etc etc. Is the idea that I release the treat after longer periods of time so say, after 13 seconds then 14 seconds and eventually he will just keep walking next to me? It's like having a yoyo at the end of the lead and I have to brace myself for the yank! He just seems so keen to be ahead of me leading the way.

Anyhow, we have made lots of progress in three months but we still have a lot more work to do. 

Thanks in advance

Sian

[Adrienne]

Hello Sian, thanks so much for the update!

I am glad to hear that Brenin is improving so quickly and that your kids are so dedicated and involved in training him. Brenin is very lucky! Sheepdogs like to follow directions and they thrive when we provide them with things to do. 

Yes, I agree that tackling his reaction to your daughters' laughing and the hugging would be important so to reduce his anxiety about these things. We can therefore work on these issues by presenting them in less intense forms (desensitization) and creating positive associations (counterconditioning0, while always ensuring he is under threshold as much as possible. 

To answer your questions about the lead pulling, it sounds like there's some behavior chain going on. Behavior chains are simply behaviors composed of several units of  discrete operant behaviors. 

Here's the thing: dogs are masters of associations, in other words, they tend to put two and two together. This tendency is not our fault, it's just that dogs in general are very predisposed to associative learning, and this associative learning ultimately has an adaptive function in a dog's evolutionary past when a dog's ancestors were predators and potential prey.

For example, if a dog encountered a life-threatening predator emerging from the water (like an alligator) he would come to associate that area of water with the predator, and therefore, he would come to avoid such area as much as possible, or  at least, would become very wary around it. On the other hand, if the dog encountered small prey animals under a bush making for an easy meal, there are good chances he would seek bushy areas more and more in hopes of finding more prey.

It is also courtesy a dog's associative learning and predisposition for forming behavior chains that we can train dogs to move in direction of a toy, pick it up, then walk towards a basket and place it in it or go through a series of obstacles as it happens in the sport of canine agility.

Of course, just as a behavior chain may be composed by desirable behaviors, they may also be composed by undesirable behaviors, or even a combo of undesirable and desirable behaviors which can sneak up despite our best intent. Some dogs may be more likely to form chains than others. So back to your dog heeling and pulling in a yo-yo-fashion, once you mark/praise reward, your dog either believes that the exercise is over so he's back to attending to all the tempting stimuli he finds on walks (which is also reinforcing), or he has actually learned that if he forges ahead, you'll soon ask him to heel again, so he has learned that pulling is part of the exercise and it's what he has to do to once again gain reinforcement.

In either case, we certainly want to remedy this situation as yo-yo walking is annoying. So we have various options to progress, but firstly I would like to point out that attention heeling is meant for brief instances as it requires a lot of concentration for the dog. So we should use it only for brief stretches of walking such as when we need to direct our dog's attention away from a trigger (for example when passing other dogs or some other distraction).  It goes without saying that we should move on to this level of training only once our dogs have been trained well to do the regular heel (that's why the attention heeling is under the increase the challenge level in the obedience 101 section). 

In any cases, yo-yo walking can occur in both heeling and attention heeling, so let's take a look on some ways to correct this as the approach would be similar: 

Firstly, congrats, you have correctly answered yourself on how to remedy this, but I will add some extra details and extra tips that come to mind.  

Preventing the Chain 

When your dog is walking nicely next to you, try your best to add duration by feeding your dog  more treats (always in the reward zone!) to keep him more consistently by your side. In other words, try to don't give him a chance to forge ahead.

You may need to give more treats initially, but then you can start spacing them out more and more to the point that you’ll be able to walk your dog on a loose leash for an occasional reward (variable schedule of reinforcement).The good thing is that your treats don't need to be big for this task, you can break a treat in several smaller pieces for the exercise so can considerably cut down on the amount you feed at every session.

So a session may go like this: if your dog heels next to you for 10 seconds and then forges ahead, you can praise/treat for different time variants like every 1, 3, 2, 7,  seconds etc. to build duration. You may need to therefore initially immediately praise/reward before your dog is able to walk ahead and leave. Rinse and repeat until your dog is wanting to stay next to you longer because he's expecting more reinforcement and then gradually increase duration.

Providing Feedback to Break the Chain

While these forms of feedback are effective in discouraging dogs, to pull, it's more of a trial and error affair, so I prefer doing as much as possible to setting dogs to success by reinforcing desirable behaviors and making dogs want to perform them, but I understand that's not always possible and we don't want our dogs to rehearse troublesome behaviors (like pulling) too much as that's how they put more roots.  So if you still catch your dog pulling on occasions, you can provide some feedback. 

For instance, the moment your dog pulls ahead, you can use a slowing down option to put in the middle of the two behaviors. In other words, right after your dog has eaten the treat after several steps of heeling, start slowing down and then stop in your tracks the moment he reaches the end of the leash.

Imagine being a tree, where as your dog starts pulling you start getting heavier, slowing down and then you stop in your tracks, put roots and "become a tree."  You want to anticipate your dog in this. If you do this enough times, your dog will come to learn that "When I start to pull, my owner slows down, when I reach the end of the leash my owner stops, when I don't pull my owner keeps walking and I even get tasty treats! Pulling or trying to pull is not good if I want to keep walking!"

You can even issue a warning that you are about to slow down by saying a split second prior to slowing down something like "slow down" and then "oops, tree spell!" (or anything else) once you put roots and stop walking. This pre- warning will help your dog succeed as he will learn to adjust his pace to yours upon hearing you pronounce that, while the "tree spell" works to get your dog's attention and understand what is happening.

Or if you want, you can skip the slow down option and go straight to stopping walking. This is an even more undesirable outcome for when your dog is walking ahead and about to pull. So to apply this method, you would stop in your tracks the moment your dog is about to walk ahead and if your dog ignores that and manages to pull,  you can even make an about face and walk in the opposite direction. This penalty is annoying to pulling dogs because it puts them at a further distance from the objective they were pulling towards. 

So once your dog understands, that, when he forges ahead and pulls you slow down and stop, you'll notice more occasions of him walking next to you which you can promptly reward so he learns it's great to stick nearby. 

Setting for Success 

As mentioned, providing feedback can be effective in discouraging dogs, to pull, but it's more of a trial and error affair, so I prefer doing as much as possible to setting dogs for success by reinforcing desirable behaviors and controlling the environment. So here are some additional tips that come to mind:

-Drain excess energy prior to walks. 

For young, energetic dogs, it helps to drain excess energy so that they're less frisky. Plan to play with your dog, train him, offer mental stimulation (brain games!) so that he'll be less over the top.

-Start in Low Distraction Areas

If your dog is pulling to go meet dogs or people, sniff bushes and chase cats, you may find it helpful to start training heeling in a lower distraction areas so to set up your dog for success. Use initially a very high reinforcement rate, and aim to gradually increase the number of steps until you reward.

Once the dog gets it, gradually introduce distractions. Once your dog's heeling behavior is more fluent, you can then start working in areas with a little more distractions, always working gradually. The goal is to keep the dog under threshold and compete with the distractions making walking next to you more desirable.

-Increase the Value of Treats. 

When we walk our dogs and expect them to walk nicely on the leash, we are dealing with strongly ingrained instincts and competing distractions. First of all, dogs are naturally predisposed to walk faster than us. If they haven't exercised much prior, they are frisky and full of energy, especially at the beginning of the walk.

On top of this, there are countless stimuli on walks that draw dogs like magnets. Dogs are naturally impulsive beings, if they see something they like they'll go for it. Walks offer a multisensorial experience and dogs are eager to explore their whereabouts and sniff. Other dogs purposely leave their business cards, (that is, pee-mail) and dogs are instinctively drawn to read the newspaper and learn more about what's happening in their neighborhood. And then you have all the lovely birds, squirrels and cats that your dog may want to instinctively chase.

So to compete with all these distractions, on top of starting in low distraction areas and/or walking at a distance from them, we can increase the value of treats so we can better compete with them. We're talking things like roasted chicken, low-sodium hot dogs, baked liver, pieces of steak etc. (Check with your vet first if your dog has allergies or sensitive tummy). 

-Consider Front-Attaching Harnesses

There are several makes and models, but recently vets are suggesting dog owner used the "Y" types. You can see a recent discussion on this here: 

 

-Consider Behavior Modification for Emotional Pulling

Some dogs pull a lot or lunge because they are too anxious or fearful, therefore these dogs may require calming aids and/or behavior modification prior to starting formal training. 

-Add a Go Sniff Cue

When the opportunity arises, don't forget to to train a "go sniff" cue so that your dog know when he is allowed to go sniff an area and isn't required to formally heel for this period of time. 

I hope this helps,

Happy Training 

Best,

Adrienne 

[SianNewman]

Hi Adrienne,

Thanks so much for all this information, I have a much clearer idea of what I'm aiming for now.

I think I can see how we have contributed to this behaviour. When he is off leash, we play this game very often where we turn in the opposite direction and he runs back to us for a treat and immediately off he goes again. He is very good now at staying close to us off leash and checking in and often coming back of his own accord BUT I can see how inadvertently we have trained him to get a treat and go. 

So, I tried this morning to interrupt the behaviour by calling him back to heel before he gets to the end of the lead which worked only on some parts of the walk where he was very under threshold (maybe 3-4 mins of a 45 min walk - he's very interested in everything!!) For the other sections of the walk, he won't come back to heel when I ask and just keeps pulling. I think if he saw me get another treat out of the bag it would bring his attention back to me but he is so quick, it's literally eat and dart forward. So I was wondering what you think of this idea to give us both more time:

Heel for say 12 seconds - before I release the treat (while I still have his attention), stop walking - release the treat and say 'wait' - let him see me put my hand back in the treat bag - start over again

Over time, hopefully he will learn to wait for another treat before darting forward? I will cook up some chicken to try for our first time and I will probably try it in the back garden too for a day or so. Also I should do this off leash so I don't reinforce the problem behaviour. I do have a command called 'on you go' where he is allowed to go off by himself. If he does get away from me, I will stop walking.

l'll let you know what happens! It's going to be a very hard but interesting week 🙂 

Sian

 

 

[SianNewman]

I meant to say 'instead of darting forward' !!!

[Adrienne]

5 hours ago, SianNewman said:

Hi Adrienne,

Thanks so much for all this information, I have a much clearer idea of what I'm aiming for now.

I think I can see how we have contributed to this behaviour. When he is off leash, we play this game very often where we turn in the opposite direction and he runs back to us for a treat and immediately off he goes again. He is very good now at staying close to us off leash and checking in and often coming back of his own accord BUT I can see how inadvertently we have trained him to get a treat and go. 

So, I tried this morning to interrupt the behaviour by calling him back to heel before he gets to the end of the lead which worked only on some parts of the walk where he was very under threshold (maybe 3-4 mins of a 45 min walk - he's very interested in everything!!) For the other sections of the walk, he won't come back to heel when I ask and just keeps pulling. I think if he saw me get another treat out of the bag it would bring his attention back to me but he is so quick, it's literally eat and dart forward. So I was wondering what you think of this idea to give us both more time:

Heel for say 12 seconds - before I release the treat (while I still have his attention), stop walking - release the treat and say 'wait' - let him see me put my hand back in the treat bag - start over again

Over time, hopefully he will learn to wait for another treat before darting forward? I will cook up some chicken to try for our first time and I will probably try it in the back garden too for a day or so. Also I should do this off leash so I don't reinforce the problem behaviour. I do have a command called 'on you go' where he is allowed to go off by himself. If he does get away from me, I will stop walking.

l'll let you know what happens! It's going to be a very hard but interesting week 🙂 

Sian

 

 

You can certainly try this method to buy more time and increase duration (that is, delaying the reward) and see how it works for you, although I would rather have you both moving and leave any slowing down/stops/about turns for when the dog darts forward to provide a form of feedback. I know it can take some time to get used to treating dogs while walking, but it gets better with practice. I would still aim though to setting him as much as possible for success by walking him more in the areas where he seems less over threshold before moving to places with more distractions and draining his energy prior so to minimize rehearsal of the darting behavior. 

The first days and weeks of owning a recued dog are the most challenging. There are many behaviors that have been rehearsed for years that need modified and worked on. There is a school of thought that rescued dogs go through 3 specific milestones occurring at 3 days, 3 weeks and 3 months. The first 3 days the dog feels overwhelmed, insecure or may be testing as he tries to adapt to his new home, after 3 weeks, the dog starts settling in, is getting used to a new routine and some new behaviors may pop up, at 3 months, the dog starts feeling more comfortable, starts bonding more with the new owner and feels more secure. I have personally seen the biggest changes at 3-4 months, although I think for some dogs it may take a little more. 

The whole experience though gets very rewarding once we start seeing the fruits of all our work. 

[SianNewman]

Hi Adrienne, I'd like to feedback after following your advice. I now have a dog that does not pull and walks to heel!! It's taken a month but he gets it now. I found that talking to him a lot helps. It's really great. So you have helped with two things and I have one more big problem to solve. I will start a new post for this.

Thank you so much

Sian

[Adrienne]

Hi Sian,

 You are doing a great job with your lovely Brenin and you are being paid back for all the wonderful dedication you have provided this lucky rescue with. 

I will be checking out your new thread shortly. 

Thanks for the lovely update and congrats!

Best,

Adrienne