Leash Manners: Learn How to Leash Train Your Puppy

However, to use it as your sole method for loose leash training is not acceptable. Choke and prong collars deliver strong doses of pain to a dog in order to deter them from unwanted behavior. It is extremely difficult to control the amount of pain generated during a correcting move with such a collar, and the force delivered invariably exceeds the required amount.

It is our very firm belief at Labrador Training HQ and in the dog community in general that these items are cruel and barbaric. Avoid them at all costs. The good news is the repetition can be fun and rewarding. You and your dog will get plenty of exercise and quality time together, and opportunities for socialization and training , too. Labradors are strong and energetic dogs, especially in their youth.

They love to get out and explore, and this desire coupled with their devotion to their owners, make loose leash training, well… a walk in the park. For further reading advice on how to stop a dog from pulling , please see the following articles:. Thanks for this article! I have been training my labrador puppy 6 months old to walk on a loose leash for about two weeks now.

However, if a person or a dog is nearby on the sidewalk, he stops paying attention to me. The distractions are just too strong and powerful for him to ignore just now. You have to start the training in a distraction free environment, and slowly progress with simple, almost boring, easy to ignore distractions, moving on to ever increasingly enticing and interesting distractions as you go through the training. Start easy, make things harder as you progress.

The following article gives an overview of proofing training which will give you a great introduction to adding distractions slowly: I tried using a halter and he pulls so much that it gets in his eye — he just keeps pulling! He is full of energy and ready to explore. Try playing with your pup before taking him on walks. Tiring him before walks will leave him with less energy to pull on the leash. Only reward him when he stops pulling and try using a stern voice to tell him to stop, Hope this helps. I have picked up a lab from a rescue centre he is 4 years old and just lovely. Very good in the house and listens very well.

Out walking on the other hand he is pulling so much and very strong. When he sees other dogs he goes crazy lunging towards them, barking. I am not too sure if he is barking aggressively or playful. I want to take him to see the dogs to maybe get it out of his system but worried in case he is being nasty. A leash is a type of restriction to them and you need to establish a dominant role during dog walks. When your pup starts pulling on the leash stop walking, stand still and wait for your dog to come to you. Once he returns praise him and maybe give him a treat.

If this method does not work, try another type of leash like the harness which restricts movement a bit. She is a perfect running partner in the city Chicago runs at heel, listens and responds well, sits on command, corrects with ease with only her name being said, very little distractions that will take her off of her run, even other dogs.

When we get to the leg of the run that is right on the lakefront path is yards from the waves hitting the beach she is totally distracted and unreachable, zero ability to listen. I use a front clip harness but on the lakefront she is basically a sled dog. August 12th, by Jim Wright. When Can Puppies go Outside?

At A Certain Age? Why do Dogs Dig? Kristen April 1, at 7: LTHQ April 8, at 1: Joel August 5, at LTHQ August 7, at I know first hand how important leash training is. When I lived in the city, one night at Living in an apartment with a dog who has the runs is no fun. So I quickly put on a jacket over my pjs and took her outside. She pulled me like crazy, which was her usual behavior since I was too lazy to teach her otherwise. She pulled me around a tree that had a small iron fence around it.

How to start walking and training a puppy

I actually passed out for a second and when I came to, there was my dog trotting down the street dragging her leash looking for a place to do her business. Anyway, thankfully a doorman called an ambulance and retrieved my dog. Fortunately my next dog was a natural on leash, but my second dog is not. We live on the 23 rd floor in a building with many elderly people as well as as untrained little yappy dogs and kids. I always have a treat in hand when we get to the elevator — at least at peak times. It endears her to people who then overlook her attempts to herd them in the lobby.

I also show off some of her crowd-pleasers like pressing the elevator button downstairs, saying hello vocally — ha wo! There are two things that I have found help my little mini Rat terrier walk better on a loose leash. Number one is pace. If I go at my normal pace, I might as well not be there as she stops every 3 steps to sniff something new and interesting. The greyhound is more difficult on pacing, since there is no way I can move fast enough to get to her traveling speed. But a nice slow amble does seem to help her keep pace. The second thing is…. Quite simply, I find the dogs walk better when I have them tethered by a waist belt than when I have a leash that I am holding.

A lot of that is eliminated by attaching the dog to your waist. If people want to try this and see for themselves, a really simple way to try it out is to just loop your leash through a belt loop. Interesting post, as always.

Since he came to us as a young adult more than strong enough to drag a grown man or seriously hurt himself or us with pure impact as he slammed into the end of the leash, we had to get it under control, fast. What worked for us was a combination of head halter which he HATED but which enabled us to safely control him while he was learning and stopping.

Simply put, I prompted him into position beside me as we walked on a shortened but loose leash. If he pulled to the side or got ahead of me, I planted my feet and stopped moving. I then turned in a circle, encouraging Otis to circle around and move back into position beside me. Out of position, tension on leash, stop, circle, repeat. It took about two dizzy weeks to really get the idea across, but once he started improving I started taking his head halter off, and only replacing it if he started acting up. Regardless, he started improving at light speed. Three months in, people who saw him in his winter coat were asking if he was a service dog.

Six years in, a toddler could walk him. Sandy, unfortunately, has been the victim of our laziness and her generally excellent behavior. She has made progress, to be sure, and I can generally walk her without any real effort. If I really insist and get her to focus, she is CRAZY good- the most stunning moment of my dog-walking life occurred as I was walking Sandy along a city sidewalk, asking for a focused heel, and watched her as we passed another dog dog next to dog, coming the other way on a narrow walk and she passed him without even turning her head.

The other dog was super impressively well-behaved himself, though he did turn his head a bit to glance at Sandy as she passed within inches of him. Still, despite her moments of mind-boggling brilliance Otis could never have done that passing without a head-turn, thing, ever. Sandy is prone to lapse in ways that Otis is not. So, I guess leash-walking is the parallel parking of the dog world…certainly a must-have for he urban canine! Great, helpful article, especially with my Active Abby!

Leash manners are something that we constantly struggle with, and I will admit that it is all my fault! We do work on her walking beside me, but when dog walking is a must, is it okay to only practice leash manners for part of the walk, and then let the dog walk her normal way for the remainder? Thanks for the great tips!!

I used an out door approved heated pet pad one winter for a young rambunctious cat who was way, way too busy inside during the night. I placed the hood for an out of use covered kitty pan over one side of the pad which had a fleece type of removable cover. He was snug as could be, had a kitty pan handy as well. He then came inside the house during the day. One also can find instructions for making insulated nesting boxes for truly feral cats if there is no suitable place for them to live. When our Entlebucher Mountain Dog, Inga, was a puppy and learning leash manners we carried all sorts of small treats, but for really distracting situations we used a wooden spoon covered in peanutbutter.

I would carry the spoon in a ziplock bag sealed around the handle in my fanny pack until we needed it. Then I would get it out and if she was right at my side I would hold it in front of her face and let her lick it. Then I would lift it up high and carry it — if she stayed at my side or moved away and then returned, I would give a verbal marker like yes or good lower it again and let her lick it.

We even used it a few times in puppy obedience class if she was really distracted. Thanks for the guidance, including both the importance of planning as well as problem solving wow, yeah! When I first worked on leash manners with my two dogs, my criteria did not include loose leashes on inclines. So uphill and downhill the dogs were allowed to tighten the leash. Since moving to a very hilly area, however, I definitely regret my earlier choice. Also I am a planner and can get stuck in the planning phase for a while.

And then I inadvertently reinforce stopping. So I wonder if I can sneak an extremely high value treat in amidst other high value treats to motivate, hold attention, etc.? So I have a question. I have to walk him on leash to reach off-leash areas, and anywhere immediately off our property. I sometimes do not have the time and energy to work with him all the way up the road, and would like to just walk along using his body harness. Is the context between a lead snapped to the collar versus a body harness clear to a dog? Good question about whether a lead snapped to a collar or a harness are different cues.

Good question too liz, about the impact of using an extra high value treat while training leash manners. Why not extra good for a longer duration? Or in the context of more distractions? I suspect we can never lose by going back to the beginning of any exercise. How much would it help Sandy? Then reinforcing her when you can predict she is likely to lapse? My dogs are on leash so rarely that I accept pretty sloppy responses, at least compared to what I expect after I say Whoa, or Lie Down, or Wait.

Maggie came, however, as if trained as a sled dog, so I really do need to get my act in gear. We had a good session this morning: These comments are good for me too; they are keeping me motivated!

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Rebecca, and not holding onto the leash. Years ago I showed video clips of people jerking the leash interspersed with chimpanzees snapping vines around. Even a medium sized dog could pull a person off their feet, or injure their back badly. I think your method is great, especially for puppies. I start out in the house, putting a hot dog cut into pieces on the floor about 10 feet away and then walk toward it with the dog on a leash. As long as the leash stays loose, we move toward the hot dog. If the leash tightens, we back up big steps, wait for the dog to be ready and then start again.

When we do, at last, reach the hot dog pieces, the dog gets to have all of them and the training session is over. I gradually increasing the distance to about 20 feet before trying to to this in the garden. Out there, we go back to the very beginning, with the hot dog 10 feet away. At 20 feet, we graduate to the sidewalk outside the house and start over, again. The only rule is that the dog must keep the leash relaxed. That is, the leash clip is hanging straight down from her collar or front-clip harness.

She can pause, sniff something, look at something or do whatever she likes as long as the leash stays loose. The hot dog is the goal. First, I really appreciate your willingness to share your training journey with Maggie and your other dogs. As a trainer, I often feel that others expect my own dog to be a model of perfect behavior, so a very big thank you for your openness about how your dogs are also works in progress.

I think with loose leash walking the devil is in the details. For example, most of us are aware we should raise the distraction level gradually, but when it comes to putting this theory into practice, how many people fail to make a systematic plan and then find themselves in situations where the distraction trumps even their high value treats?

One area I would really like to learn more about is how to make the best use of timing of reinforcements when training both loose leash walking and formal heeling. My dog has been responding well to something I just recently started trying out which is reinforcing her each and every time she is able to take a fixed number of steps without pulling — and when I get that behavior at least 5 out of 6 times, I raise criteria and add another step.

We are up to about 12 steps now in medium distraction places. I love this post for a couple of reasons. One is that I, too, am really terrible at teaching leash manners because I find it so boring and have a high tolerance for pulling dogs mine are not huge so that helps. And two is that I used almost exactly the method you describe in training Jack, without ever having read it somewhere first, because I knew I needed to be creative. He was a brave, bold puppy prone to wandering off we brought him home from the breeder at 10 weeks.

He was in his crate in the car for two hours. I carried him into the backyard, put him down, and he promptly trotted to the front of the house and started to head up the street to see the neighbor. Things just got worse from there. And therefore he needed to be on a leash pretty much from day 2 of being here, when he was much much too young to be expected to walk anything like nicely. And so by the time he was old enough to learn leash manners, he had some terrible habits associated with the leash— zigging and zagging, pulling, playing tug, and on and on.

And I promptly took him down the basement and taught him to walk in more or less heel position without a leash. We made it a game and changed direction and speed frequently, with lots of treats and increasing level of difficulty. Since he was herdy as a puppy, having him stick close by my feet while I changed direction and speed rapidly was great fun for him and self-rewarding, and the treats were a huge bonus.

The hardest part for me was to learn to treat from the side so I did not pull him out of position. Once he had that down, I clipped on the leash and went back to the beginning with him dragging it. I repeated all the steps, and only then did I pick the leash up, and again went back to step one. Once he had THAT down, I would take him out into a big field after he was exercised and went back to the game with no leash, then added the leash and had him drag it, then picked up the leash. This was a field he already associated with training time. Only after that did I add it to walks.

On walks I would only ask for heel after he had sniffed and pottied and burned off some energy, so about 15 minutes into the walk. And when it came to approaching other dogs on a loose leash because he loves to socialize , I resorted to luring and that was a lot more work. I really had to treat it as an entirely different training tactic, since he failed to ever see it as an escalation of increasing distraction from the original training.

Introducing a friendly dog to the exercise was just too much for him. To this day, he heels much better off-leash than on, a clear sign that my own fairly lazy leash habits are the primary factor whenever he blows me off. Maddie was super easy. She learned to heel by watching Jack do it. Your method can definitely work, but not for me!

Reward the dog for pulling just once and the task becomes that much harder. What a timely post for me. I just recently decided that after 6 months of owning her, I need to really work on leash manners with Allie, my young cattle dog.

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She was doing okay in our neighborhood on leash and is fantastic off-leash when we are hiking but then one of the neighbors made himself very exciting by screaming at us because his dog barks at us whenever we walk past. Walks have been somewhat dreadful ever since go figure. I like the sloppy circles idea, in particular. Your point about not using the leash is really good- I tried for over a year to teach my male dog to heel and just could not get him to understand until one day when I grabbed his Kong Wubba and headed outside we lived in the country then without even his collar on him he has a great recall and worked.

He heels beautifully now, but that leash was really preventing us from communicating effectively. In fact, he and I still do better without the leash for obedience work than with the leash. I walk all three of my border collies together on-leash every morning. They are out in front of me, but do not pull. If anyone decides to get too energetic and I feel tension, I simply stop. I participate in competition obedience, so my two boys know heel as a very specific command.

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Besides, I want our walks to be a time for all of us to enjoy being outside together where they can smell the roses and I can enjoy their company. We also enjoy heeling during training sessions because I have worked hard to make it a fun exercise.

Introducing a puppy to walking on a leash | Cesar's Way

One of my current dogs sounds a bit like Maggie: She simply cannot walk slowly. It provides her a built-in reward. If I buy your plane ticket, will you come an explain this: Yup, we have two avid pullers and me trying to train with them and him applying the above mentioned technique is … hum… counterproductive? Well anyway, I re-started training not pulling when I hurt my back and what I mainly do is start the walk with them besides me and during the walk, what works with Spot is me stopping when he start pulling, then clicking and moving forward.

The moving forward is a much bigger motivator than the treat. Shad loves the treat, the only problem with him is that walking sometimes looks more like bungee jumping: The difficulty there is probably that in the garden were fine, but as soon as I move out of the door, failure is close bye in the presence of the neighbours cat, the marten that uses the driveway as a public toilet, the rabbits from the neighbour that escape every now and then and did I mention the squirrel that times each road crossing with us walking past?

So thanks Trisha, for a very timely post, we just keep on trying. We sometimes have walks were they do not pull all the time…. By the way, as an addition: Furthermore, I think we made a mistake when we used bungee-leashes when the guys were very young. I was so used in using one of those, because our first husky was a dog that pulled on principle that unthinkingly I used the smash leashes for the pups. IS using a bungee-leash counterproductive?

Perhaps because I do not feel the pulling, thereby making me lax in training? I woud appreciate your thoughts on this. Love the walk talk! Lots of help from my own dog Tawny, who was basically a rocket attached to a leash. She now is a great walker most of the time, so she gets to wander rather than walk because no matter where she wanders, if she feels any collar pressure she immediately releases it herself.

This comes from hours of experimentation; my last go-round was starting from scratch with a different word. Context really is king. When we adopted Ranger as an unruly teenager the leash I bought was called a traffic grip leash; it has a handle at the six foot mark and a handle right next to the collar. By the time we adopted Finna I knew a lot more and have taught her leash manners in a fashion much closer to what you outlined. Finna came to us with collar use completely poisoned. So she learned leash walking on a front harness while we retrained a collar.

On the advice of our wonderful trainer we would touch the collar, click and treat then we progressed to holding the collar lightly and briefly mark and reward then lightly tugging the collar as we held it and if she turned toward the tug mark and reward. Today I can walk her with a leash attached to her collar or using a slip lead but she prefers the harness so we mostly use that. So she does recognize different rules for different gear.

Of her own accord Finna has developed her own style of heeling. The same dogs that are brilliant at shepherding, search and rescue, or agility, start dancing around like chihuahuas with someone leaning over them once they lose the ability to put space between themselves and, well, pretty much everything else in the environment. When he pulls, rather than simply stopping, turn around and walk the other way. When he catches up to you, be very happy to see him, and reward him for being with you. Most dogs quickly learn to pay attention and not to pull.

He may need a different collar or a head halter for a while to give you better control. Of course, it may also be that you are inadvertently encouraging him to pull by hurrying along with him. Your best option is to take an obedience class or even a few private lessons from a qualified instructor. Lure him beside you with a treat. When he takes a few steps in the right place, praise and reward him.

Repeat until he stays beside you, slowly increasing the time between treats until he no longer needs to be rewarded. If his weaving or circling is wild enough to pose a risk, shorten your leash so that he has to stay on one side of you, and reward him when he does. Training enhances your relationship with your dog and enriches the bond you establish with him throughout the years. Sometimes dogs can suddenly exhibit bad behaviors, even dogs who are otherwise on their best behavior. Before You Start 1: In the beginning you should have treats or some other reward for your dog.