Loose Lead Walking

[dididog]

I can see you've got some great advice here already Terri :)

What does she do if you walk her on leash around your backyard and house? Give it a go, as it will highlight to you whether you primarily have an understanding problem or a distraction problem, or maybe a bit of both, as your house and yard should be a very low-distraction environment that enables her to perform at her best.

What is your aim? Just loose leash, or loose leash and by your side?

I would tackle the problem in the following ways:

Firstly I would determine what function her pulling is achieving. It is likely that pulling is rewarding for her as it involves moving more quickly and possibly accessing reinforcement such as interesting smells.

So then your job is to ensure that pulling never, ever results in these things. Make sure she never gets to move forward when she is pulling, or reach interesting smells (or whatever it is that she finds reinforcing).

So I would focus on that, and not give corrections at all.

Then you want to teach her that she can get these things that she wants by walking loose leash. So the moment she starts to pull you stop dead in your tracks. Wait for something polite from her, like looking at you, or a sit, then turn her around (walk in the direction you came from for a few metres) and attempt it again. Often dogs will pull at a certain point because they are interested in something, and they want to check it out. So you would keep stopping, then turning her around, until she can walk past whatever is distracting her on a loose leash. Then you tell her how amazing she is and let her check out what she was so interested in (or if that's not appropriate, give her some treats and lots of praise).

When she is walking nicely, you can reward her by going faster, maybe even running. If she makes a mistake get her to practice until she gets it right.

In regards to new environments, if you can manage it, try to take her to new places as much as possible. But instead of going to a new environment with the idea to walk in that new environment, go there to just hang out. So take a matt for her, and a kong, and just get her to chill out.

Then when she is more confident in new places and has more ability to focus on you, then try going for walks.

Thanks Raineth :)

I am assuming it's a distraction thing because in low distraction environments she is perfectly fine and whenever there's tension in the lead she'll slow down so I'm taking that as a sign it's not her understanding that's the problem (at least I hope so, otherwise the last few months all of our practice would be for nothing!)

Ideally I just want her walking on a loose lead, in front/behind/beside me doesn't really matter as long as the lead is loose. Whenever she does pull in these low distraction environment it's to sniff (which is her favourite thing to do in the world), she doesn't seem care much about going faster or leading the way or anything.

That sounds like a good method for stopping her pulls toward smells, I don't really mind if she wants to sniff things as we're walking along but I don't want her forcefully pulling towards smells or digging her heels in when I want to keep walking so I'll work on that.

Also yes I should probably work more on her remaining focused on me before we move onto the walking, I was planning on letting her get settled first but I might just spend more time practicing looks at me's and nice calm behaviour. I took her out heaps when she was a puppy and during the summer holidays but I have struggled a bit to keep up the same rate of going out since she's gotten bigger/I've started uni. Don't know if I'll be able to manage a mat and a big puppy on the train :laugh: but I think we can manage a kong or something similar.

[raineth]

I completely understand, it can be really hard to go to many new places. I never get Del into new places as much as I probably should. And not having a car definitely presents it's own challenges for sure! :)

The best I've come up with for taking a matt with you for a big dog, is to take a bath matt. They fold up fairly small and fit pretty easily into a backpack and still provide a level of comfort for a big dog :)

I'm sure you'll get there with her :) Digby was always very easy to train, and Del has always been much more challenging for me. Digby learnt loose leash walking very easily with just some food reinforcement and me stopping dead if he pulled on the leash. But with Del this was not enough. The only way to get it through to her was not to keep on with the walk, but to practice going past any distraction, over and over again until she would walk past with the leash loose. Didi might need that as well, or she might need it while she is going through her challenging adolescence phase ;)

[Staffyluv]

Something I did with Zig was to walk near a wall or fence. Basically the dog is in heel position, between you and the wall or fence. Start walking and if the dog goes to go past you, step toward the fence/wall, effectively blocking the dog from going past (so they can't pull).

The more I did this the better he became.

The other thing that worked with him was holding a tennis ball (he is ball motivated, not treat motivated) in the same hand as the lead, with the dog at heel - he would walk really nicely while near the ball (at my hip level).

He worked out very quickly that he would get his reward if he stayed at a heel position..

Different things work for different dogs - we try most methods and suggestions.

[Amax-1]

I don't really mind if she wants to sniff things as we're walking along but I don't want her forcefully pulling towards smells or digging her heels in when I want to keep walking so I'll work on that.

The dog has no reason to focus on the handler that's why she darts around sniffing and misbehaves in distractive environments. This is pretty normal behaviour or it's a common and predictable behaviour that unless a dog is trained not to dart around sniffing, pulling on the leash and digging their heels in to keep on sniffing from a puppy, the behaviour from adolescence onwards gets worse and more frustrating.

When they are trained in handler focus from puppyhood, they don't exhibit these behaviours to deal with in adolescence, but of course we only learn this from experience of raising many dogs, so when we do end up with an adolescent sniffer darting all over place on leash, the fastest way I have ever found to extinguish the behaviour is the change of direction self correction process reinforced with reward for maintaining focus on where the handler is going. Once the dog has a reason to focus on the handler, the environment doesn't matter and the dog will respond the same in practically all environments and distractions.

With sniffers in the training process, you can't relax on it and whilst training their is NO sniffing whatsoever as allowing one pull and sniff until the dog is proofed will undo the progress made :)

[Simply Grand]

You can easily teach boundaries where 'sniffing what you can reach without pulling on the lead is allowed and sometimes it's ok to stop and have a good sniff but when I tell you it's time to move on you have to come'. You just have to be consistent about where the boundaries are.

[dididog]

You can easily teach boundaries where 'sniffing what you can reach without pulling on the lead is allowed and sometimes it's ok to stop and have a good sniff but when I tell you it's time to move on you have to come'. You just have to be consistent about where the boundaries are.

How would I go about setting those boundaries? We don't have much of a yard so I generally encouraging sniffing for wees when we start walking down our street or at the end of our walk so I don't know how feasible never letting her sniff would be. Should I just work on establishing a cue word for sniff and really strengthening a 'leave it' command so that she doesn't stop to sniff everything/moves on from a smell when I want to?

Our walks are primarily for her enjoyment so I don't want her to feel she has to completely ignore everything but me, as long as she's not towing me around and respecting my boundaries I don't mind what she does. In saying that I think we really do need to work on her focus on me. She has a tendency to do what I ask of her but not really be looking at me while she does it unless we're in a training session.

This has opened my eyes to a lot of other factors that we clearly need to work on (looking to me for instruction/calm, neutral behaviour in new place etc.) in order for her to succeed at loose lead walking. Thanks for the pointers, I'll keep them in mind and let you know how we go/if I still can't get through to her.

[hankdog]

Terri there is no absolute. Dogs are trained for different purposes. My friends show dogs don't sit, freaks me out but she doesn't want them too. The correct amount of sniffing is how much sniffing you want. Teach her a solid leave it, when she's doing something you don't want then tell her. If you want to wander along stopping at each smell that's your choice. No magical standard, your dog does what you want.

[Simply Grand]

Exactly right, it's completely up to you what you're happy with. I know of a dog whose owners decided it would be allowed to sniff for exactly 5 seconds each time it stopped so they'd count down the 5 in their head then move her on every single time. She learnt the time period herself and eventually would move on herself after 5 seconds :laugh: For me, like you said, I'm happy for them to sniff whatever most of the time but I don't want them pulling me all over the place and if I'm sick of them all sniffing the same bush, taking turns to pee on it, then all sniffing the same bush again when it's freezing cold and I'm hungry :p then I want them to move own without a fuss.

When I say be consistent, I don't mean you have to have that 5 second rule for every sniff but more that you decide ok, she can go to the end of the lead so it's straight but she won't get to pull any further than that, ever and that when you say leave it or come on or let's go or whatever you want your cue to be she will move on, every time.

In these early stages you're actively training that every time so it's hard work for you but eventually she'll become conditioned to responding so it will become much easier and you won't have to think about it so much.

Definitely build up your nice strong 'leave it' but don't forget if you're asking her to leave a really good smell you need to reward her with something even better if you want her to do it more willingly the next time. Easy way to do this is use that sense of smell for your benefit and use yummy smelly treats like cooked chicken, cheese, bits of hot dog, and as you're telling her to leave it waft that near her nose - when she leaves what she was smelling and moves a step forward with you again she gets the reward! Pretty quickly she'll be jumping at the chance to leave it because it means she gets the reward, then you can start randomising and phasing out your food reward and use things like praise instead.

I actually only use 'leave it' for specific higher value items when walking, like if they want to sniff a dead bird or get a bit too interested in some poo they've found, and they get a bigger reward for it because I want them to associate that cue specifically with that big reward so they will leave those higher value items (if that makes any sense!). I use 'c'mon' in a happy tone for just time to move on because that's easier for them to do and I'm not going to give them as a high a value reward - but the reward still needs to be better than the pee they were just smelling :)

Sorry, I'm trying not to overwhelm you with too much info, it's much easier to teach this stuff in person!

[Simply Grand]

Just another thought too. I'm not sure what kind of corrections you're using when you say you're using a mix of corrections and rewards (assume things like leash pops and verbal corrections?) but unless that's a training approach you really like and want to use, you don't need it to teach loose lead walking. The only correction you need to use is stop still and allow her no progress for pulling. This is most effective if you don't say or do anything, you just immediately stop, hold tightly to the lead until, as Raineth said, she CHOOSES to make some sort of movement to loosen the lead, as soon as she does you start moving again.

The way I try and explain it in training classes is something like this:

If the dog is pulling forward away from you - stop still, no progress until they do something to relieve the pressure on that lead.

When the lead is nice and loose and the dog is moving along AND when you give your time to move along cue, whatever it is, and the dog does - mark and reward. You can reward from your hand, or by dropping the treat on the ground where the dog can see it - mix it up to keep it exciting. If you give your time to move along cue and she doesn't - go to next step.

If the dog is pulling back behind you (wants to keep sniffing instead of keeping up with you) - do something unexpected to make yourself more exciting than whatever has their attention - change direction, start running, wave your treats then reward as they catch up to you.

For you I'd add, loose lead while sniffing, until asked to move on - she gets the "life reward" of being able to continue sniffing. If she progresses to any of the above, respond accordingly.

[raineth]

I've always taught a heel and a loose leash walk.

When the dog is loose leash they are allowed to stop and sniff, and be in front of me or to the side of me, or behind me, and that sort of thing, just not allowed to pull.

When they are heeling they are meant to walk by my side on a loose leash and be working with me. We transition between these two styles of walking throughout our walks. You have to make the transition very clear to them so they don't get confused. When i start teaching them this I always transition with a sit as it helps to make it clear to them.

When you are teaching heel use a really high rate of reinforcement and make it like a really fun game using turns etc. just ask for a couple of steps and then release for your loose leash walking :)

You can set up a really good training scenario in your house for her to learn the contingency.

You do this by having something really special and yummy for her on the ground where she can see it.

Have her on leash an walk towards it. When she pulls, or even the moment before she pulls you stop dead. Turn her around and start again. Just keep it up until she learns that she gets closer to the reward by not pulling. When she is quite close and not pulling release her to get the reward :)

[Simply Grand]

Ooh, great exercise raineth, I'm going to steal that one

[Amax-1]

You can easily teach boundaries where 'sniffing what you can reach without pulling on the lead is allowed and sometimes it's ok to stop and have a good sniff but when I tell you it's time to move on you have to come'. You just have to be consistent about where the boundaries are.

Yes you can indeed and easily for an experienced handler/trainer, but personally I wouldn't teach that to an owner struggling with a darting sniffer to complicate matters further. Once the preferred behaviour is attained and the dog has adequate handler focus then by all means a controlled sniff can be implemented.

[Simply Grand]

I agree with you if you're dealing with a dog that has a history of success with pulling and refusing to move on and hasn't learned handler focus. In that case I'd definitely be working on short leash, maintain focus on me and ignore all distractions until that focus and responsiveness is built up.

I think though with a dog like Didi who is already able to focus on Terri in many situations and has value for her she should be able to achieve it.

[dididog]

Thanks raineth for that idea, my house is a bit small to do that but I'm sure I could set something similar up on the pavement out the front, our street is relatively quiet/low distraction. We are working on a 'heel' obedience command at the moment but it's really not strong enough to whip out in most situations. In situations where I'd like her to be doing more of a heel i just shorten her lead so that she can only walk next to me and any attempts to do otherwise would = lead tension and I'd just do the same things I'd do in other situations where she's creating tension.

SG, with the correction, it's a small pop paired with a firmish uh-uh and then a reward/praise for easing tension. Other times when I can preempt her pulling or moving too far away (before lead tension occurs) I call her name (which has inadvertently become our 'look' command) and because she's built the association Didi=focus on mum for something good she'll come to me and is rewarded which is my attempt to make me more interesting then whatever else she was focusing on. I know I probably should have a separate command for this but I just got into the habit of saying her name to pull focus and now she's caught on and responds to it which might complicate matters so I suppose weaning her off that and onto a different cue word will be another thing to add to the list!

In higher distraction environments (or noisier ones) though she's less likely to respond to this so I end up using the correction to break focus and remind her hey that's not what I want, please do nice walkies instead and then I reward her for doing nice walkies. If she is actually in the act of pulling though (not just reaching the end of the lead) I do just stop until she's no longer pulling and usually she sits when I stop and then I ask for good walkies but I think I perhaps don't use this method enough, especially when our walks are designed to take us somewhere in certain amount of time.

My long term plan is to phase out the physical correction and just have the verbal 'uh-uh' when there's too much tension or 'Didi/a look command' to draw focus from something she might want to pull toward. Hopefully with a lot of time and practice I can get her there by improving her focus on me especially in new places and really really making sure she never gets rewarded for pulling.

One thing that I think is also setting us back is when other people try to walk her. If my dad ever wants to exercise her or I am sick/unable to do it that day then I just tell him to take her to the park (by car) instead because one walk with my dad or my brother just completely unravels everything. The day after Didi will be all over the place because they will keep walking while she pulls or correct too late or not reward her enough. Pretty much every bit of training I've tried to do has been undermined by how inconsistent everybody in my household is with her and it shows so much in the way she acts around them, especially now in adolescence! (but that's a whole 'nother thread )

Anyway tomorrow we are going to the chiropractor and then the beach which are places she's been a few times though are still a novelty so I'll bring a bunch of super tasty treats and a toy and work on just making me the most interesting thing/not so distracted by everything. The chiropractor is small and quiet and we will be one of the last customers so not so challenging and in winter barely anyone is on Port Melbourne beach and the surrounding pathways so hopefully it's not tooo much.

[dididog]

Today went well. We got out of the car about 200m from the chiropractor and right away Didi wanted to pull so I just slowly crawled my way there, stopping almost every other step, it was virtually impossible to get her focus because my parents had walked ahead and she wanted to get to them so I just made sure at least she wasn't allowed to move ahead while pulling. The chiropractor has a courtyard out the front with a small entry way to the street so we waited in the courtyard, luckily our appointment got bumped back by 15 mins so I got to spend even more time there.

Once she calmed down I started patting her, talking to her excitedly and giving her treat for paying attention to me, getting her to do some hi fives which she finds super fun to do. Once she wasn't too fussed with everything around her I just started walking in circles around the courtyard calling her to me/running to get her attention and lots of rewards for walking with me of course. After she was really intent on just following me I would walk out onto the street briefly doing something to keep her attention and then run back in to the courtyard and did that a few times spending a bit more time on the street each time so that eventually she wasn't really paying attention to whether we were on the street or in the courtyard. Then we had to walk back to the car and instead of me stopping every two seconds like I did on the way in we only had to stop twice.

I decided not to go to the beach as it would be too hard to stop as often as I needed to with my parents walking ahead but the chiropractor was still good.

[raineth]

Sounds like you did great

Make sure you're consistent and just keep the walks really short for your own sanity while she is in the stage of learning not to pull :)

[hankdog]

That sounds great, give her time she will get there. One thing I added was after I stopped I Woukd wait for eye contact before starting. No commands because I wanted it more as a shaped action so he used his brain. If he wouldn't I might cough or shuffle my feet, or you know wait fifteen minutes because he's a bulldog and a bit speshul.

[dididog]

Raineth and Hankdog-

Thanks! I definitely think I've been rushing things a bit too much and am keen to slow it right down in order for her to actually get it.

[Simply Grand]

Today went well. We got out of the car about 200m from the chiropractor and right away Didi wanted to pull so I just slowly crawled my way there, stopping almost every other step, it was virtually impossible to get her focus because my parents had walked ahead and she wanted to get to them so I just made sure at least she wasn't allowed to move ahead while pulling. The chiropractor has a courtyard out the front with a small entry way to the street so we waited in the courtyard, luckily our appointment got bumped back by 15 mins so I got to spend even more time there.

Once she calmed down I started patting her, talking to her excitedly and giving her treat for paying attention to me, getting her to do some hi fives which she finds super fun to do. Once she wasn't too fussed with everything around her I just started walking in circles around the courtyard calling her to me/running to get her attention and lots of rewards for walking with me of course. After she was really intent on just following me I would walk out onto the street briefly doing something to keep her attention and then run back in to the courtyard and did that a few times spending a bit more time on the street each time so that eventually she wasn't really paying attention to whether we were on the street or in the courtyard. Then we had to walk back to the car and instead of me stopping every two seconds like I did on the way in we only had to stop twice.

I decided not to go to the beach as it would be too hard to stop as often as I needed to with my parents walking ahead but the chiropractor was still good.

That sounds fantastic, well done

Re using her name to get her to look at you, I don't think that's a problem, I do it with my guys and it works well. It's good with the three of them coz they can tell which one I want the attention of (although they usually all look anyway in case they can score a treat *eye roll* :p ).

[dididog]

That sounds fantastic, well done

Re using her name to get her to look at you, I don't think that's a problem, I do it with my guys and it works well. It's good with the three of them coz they can tell which one I want the attention of (although they usually all look anyway in case they can score a treat *eye roll* :p ).

Okay good, wasn't looking forward to making a new word! The only problem is my family often use her name to tell her off (sigh) but since that's in a completely different tone I don't think she sees them as the same.