walking puppy on leash

[SandraLauterbach]

I am not enjoying going on a walk w/our  4 1/2 month old mini poodle.  On our quiet deadend street he will usually walk properly by my side and the leash is loose in a j shape.  once we are on another street he may pull ahead, walk behind me and to the opposite side.  A pull back does not always work.  Using a treat to keep him by my  left leg is not practical if i want to really go on a walk.  what are your suggestions?

[JMFS]

Just a quick bit of advice:  replace the pull back with an emergency turnaround.  This is a great tool for your kit to have trained because it can save your dog And it makes walking on the leash nicer for you.  It takes a little work upfront, but they do eventually catch on!

When your dog starts pulling you can say something like, "oops," and you turn around and walk the other way.  When he's walking to your satisfaction again you can turn back around and continue on the intended path.  With Momo I have to do this over and over and over because he's so darn hyper.  Gertie gets the idea right away.  That is to say - it's largely based on your dog as to how quickly they pick this up.  I've gone on walks with Mo where we haven't gotten further than 2 blocks with constant turnarounds where Gertie and I walk 3 miles and it's a breeze.

There are more tricks in the bag, and there are numerous posts around here that have excellent advice.  I just wanted to let you know about that emergency turnaround because it's such an easy thing to do and highly effective.  It works well if your dog is about to chase a squirrel or put their mouth on something on the ground (like trash because dogs are weird).  It teaches them that every time they pull they're going to end up moving in the Opposite direction of that interesting thing, but if they walk nicely they'll get closer to it.

[SandraLauterbach]

Jennifer, thank you for responding to my post.  He justs seems to be interested in everything.  he is fine w/turning around.  would love to hear more suggestions.

[JMFS]

At 4½ months old Everything is a new sensation.  Let me see if I can dig up some of those posts because Adrienne's gone into super detail mode in them.  Be right back!

[JMFS]

Those were what I found on the first page after weeding out the posts that had other issues involved.

With Gertie my Favorite way to address this is to use a bungy style leash and a front attachment harness.  My leash encircles my waist so my hands are free and that helps me with balance.

With Momo we seriously didn't get any further than the end of the street the first few times out with all the turnarounds we had to do.  He eventually got it after the 4th day.  There's still pulling in the first 5 minutes these days, but after he gets over himself (he's wired for sound - no human has ever tired him out and only one dog has succeeded in that respect).

[Adrienne]

Hello Sandra and welcome back,

It is great that Zeus is walking with a loose leash on your quiet dead-end street. This tells me that you and your puppy have grasped the basics of loose-leash walking, but are struggling when walking on another street. In such a case, it helps to evaluate and do some troubleshooting to identify what may be happening.

Often, this is just a matter of increased distractions. This road may have many temptations that attract your puppy as a magnet and lure your puppy away. At this young age, it is rather normal for puppies to be inquisitive and interested in exploring in their surroundings. On the other, perhaps there may be also some anxiety component in place which often causes puppies and dogs to to act hypervigilant and walk in a zig-zag motion. So let's tackle these two forms of pulling.

Pulling due to distractions

When we walk our dogs and expect them to walk nicely on the leash, we are dealing with strongly ingrained instincts and competing distractions. 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. 

So to compete with all these distractions, we want to start training in low distraction areas and/or walking at a distance from them, and we can also increase the value of treats so we can better compete with them. We can also provide consequences to make pulling less likely. Let's take a closer look at these. 

Starting training  in Low Distraction Areas. If your pup 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 (like at home, then the yard, then the quiet road) 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 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.

Walk at a distance from distractions. If your puppy pulls towards other dogs in their yards, walk him on the opposite side. If your puppy wants to sniff the grass on people's lawns walk farther away from them. Distance can help your puppy be less distracted.

Compete with distractions. This means making sticking by your side the best place to be. We can do this by training the dog to heel and attention heel for some steps while we are passing some distractions as described in these guides:

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

It sounds like though you find the treat-delivery part impractical. Perhaps it's the bending down action to deliver the treat next to your leg? Or the slowing down? 

Provide consequences for pulling. If you really want to bypass treats, you'll need some type of consequence and you'll need to be very consistent. The consequence doesn't need to be something aversive such as delivering a leash correction by pulling back. It can be as simple as stopping walking or turning the opposite way as Jennifer has described. The goal is restoring the tense leash to a loose leash before walking again, so when you stop in your tracks, you'll have wait for the dog to realize that he doesn't get anywhere if he isn't walking "with you." You will need to  therefore adhere to the rule that "a loose leash is your accelerator and a tense leash is your brake" and apply it consistently and praising when the leash is loose and reinforcing that loose leash with forward movement. (I personally prefer to praise when the leash is loose and reinforce with a treat as well as forward movement for a double whammy of reinforcement). 

As Jennifer pointed out though, this method requires lots of repetition, which means that you'll be stopping or turning repeatedly, so you will have to evaluate which is the less of the two evils you are walking by an area with distractions: making a smacking sound and praising and rewarding your pup with tasty treats every few steps to keep his interest alive and compete with distractions, or stopping or turning repeatedly or maybe doing a mix of both.

Regardless of methods chosen, be aware of behavior chains. Sometimes, with some smart dogs, we may get stuck with them walking in a yo-yo fashion. They'll be pulling, then they come to us for a treat, then forge ahead and pull, then come get a treat etc. This a behavior chain that requires some skill to stop. I work on this with providing frequent feedback.

If your dog does this, the moment he pulls ahead, you can use a slowing down option to put in the middle of the two behaviors (heeling next to you and pulling).  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!" (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 "oops" works to get your dog's attention and understand what is happening.

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.  With small dogs, once they grasp they concept, we can even drop treats to the ground next to us to reward them rather than feeding them right next to our knee. 

Pulling Due to Anxiety

These dogs may require behavior modification prior to starting formal training. In other words, they need o be exposed to triggers in a systematic, controlled manner through desensitization, and creating positive associations with triggers through counterconditioning.

More on these here: 

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/desensitization/

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/counterconditioning/

The dog's behavior on leash needs to be therefore carefully assessed to compile a list of triggers. Calming aids may be needed with some particularly anxious dogs. 

Other tips that come to mind:

-Use a harness rather than a collar for small dogs. Small dogs are prone to tracheal collapse and leash pulling against the collar can cause damage over time. You may find a front-clip harness better for training your pup to walk nicely. This puts the leash in a more frontal position and when your pup pulls it somewhat turns him your way and redirects him to your side.

-Watch what you do with your arm. Keep your arm in a natural down position when walking your pup. If you stretch your arm forward when your pup pulls, you are reinforcing the pulling by giving more leash as you extend the arm. If pulling therefore makes your arm move forward and your dog gains just a few inches this way, granted he'll keep pulling to gain that. With some owners, I tell them to keep their hand holding the leash in their pocket to fight this ingrained habit.

-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. Consider that 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. 

-. 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 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 pulling behavior. 

-Finally, here's a bonding exercise: If you have the space, it can also help to walk around a fenced yard and say "good boy!" and hand a treat when your dog, despite having a lot of acreage to explore, yet decides to stick nearby you.

Hope this helps! At this age, we can't really expect perfect heeling due to the pup's smaller attention spans and desire to explore. Things get better though as the pup matures, bonds with us more and the outdoor world becomes more ho-hum so to say-as long as we stay consistent by not reinforcing the pulling with our forward movement. 

Keep me posted on how things go!

Best,

Adrienne