Home Care is the Best Care™

Does Your Dog Walk You?

Category: Dog Training, Dog Walking, Pet Tips | Tags: Tags: , , , , , ,

Date: September 12th, 2013

dogpullThe first rule in teaching your dog NOT to pull, is to never allow him to pull. If you are inconsistent, your dog will test you and continue to try pulling since it pays off for him sometimes!

You can use various methods and training equipment to help teach your dog not to pull. Here are some guidelines and methods from the ASPCA website:

1) Until your dog doesn’t pull, consider all walks training sessions.
2) Find other ways to get out your dog’s energy while training him, so he is not tempted to pull you on the leash. Most dogs pull because they have excess energy. Try a dog park, fetch, tug etc.
3) Use desirable treats that your dog doesn’t get at other times.
4) Walk at a quick pace. Your dog will stop less, and have fewer chances to pulling you.
5) If your dog gets too excited right before the walk, while putting on the collar/harness, then you need to calm your dog down before leaving.
6) Tell your dog walker that you are training your dog not to pull, and give him or her the methods that you use, so they can continue the training process on their walks.

My 2 favorite methods of training your dog not to pull:

RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT

Walk in your intended direction. The instant your dog reaches the end of his leash and pulls, red light! — stop dead in your tracks and wait. When he stops pulling and puts slack in the leash (maybe he turns to see what you’re doing and this makes the leash a little slack), call him back to you. When he comes to you, ask him to sit. When he does, say “Yes,” give him a treat and resume walking (green light). If your dog looks up at you in anticipation of more tasty treats, quickly say “Yes,” and give him one while you keep walking. If he pulls again, repeat the red-light step above. As you’re walking, reward your dog frequently for staying next to you or slightly ahead and for looking up at you. If you do this consistently, he’ll learn that a) if he stays near you or looks at you, he gets treats and gets to keep moving, and b) if he pulls on the leash, the fun stops because he doesn’t get to keep walking and he has to come back to you and sit. If your dog pulls toward an object to sniff or eliminate, carry out the red light, but when he comes back and sits by you, don’t reward him with a treat. Instead, make the object he wanted to sniff the reward. Say “Yes,” and release him to go to the object. (Make sure you go with him toward the object so that he doesn’t have to pull again to reach it.) After a few days or weeks, you’ll find yourself stopping less frequently. Make sure you continue to reward your dog for walking with slack in the leash or he’ll start pulling again. This is the method I used on my pup Valentino, and it worked for him!

LURE AND REWARD

Start with your dog standing at your left side. With several treats enclosed in your left hand, hold your left hand right in front of your dog’s nose (within 1 inch of it). Say “Let’s walk,” and walk in your intended direction. Every few seconds, pop a small treat into your dog’s mouth and praise her for walking along at your pace. You’ll need to frequently reload your hand with treats from your left pocket or from a treat pouch attached to your waist. If she pulls ahead or to the side, immediately stop. Get your dog’s attention by calling her name again. Ask her to sit, and praise her when she does. Then put the treat-loaded hand back in front of her nose and start walking again. Go a little bit farther every day that you practice. After at least a week of daily practice with lured walking, stop luring her along with your treat-loaded hand, and instead just carry your empty left hand in a natural position at your waist with elbow bent. Say “Let’s walk,” and reward her, about every other step you take, with a treat that you get from your left pocket or waist treat pouch. When she can walk along without pulling for several minutes, begin gradually increasing—over many daily training sessions—the number of steps you go in between treats so that your dog is walking longer distances between rewards. Reward her every other step at first, then every 5 steps, then every 10, and so on. Eventually, you should be able to walk with your hand comfortably at your side, periodically (every minute or so) reaching into your pocket to grab a treat to reward your dog.

Lastly, choosing the right equipment is vital. When in training do NOT use a regular snap collar (actually don’t use this ever because dogs can get out of them easily), a regular body harness (gives them power), or a prong collar (unless used with the guidance of a certified trainer). Good choices are a martingale collar, a head halter or head collar such as the gentle leader, or a no pull harness (sensation harness).

dog nopull

Good luck! It is worth the effort, because once your dog learns not to pull, you can have relaxing walks side by side! 🙂

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.