LOOSE LEAD WALKING

 

Walks with your dog are much more enjoyable when your dog is beside you on a loose leash instead of pulling ahead of you! It is also important especially for fearful or reactive dogs to be more connected to their human on the walk.

Loose leash walking is a skill that takes patience, consistency and practice. It’s much easier if you start this from puppyhood but don’t worry if your dog has pulled on the leash for years, you can still teach them new habits!

  • 1. Equipment - Theoretically, you should be able to teach loose leash walking using a piece of string attached to the dog’s collar! However, in the interests of practicality and safety, the best equipment to use is a good fitting harness. Check the leash and harness clips to ensure they won’t break. A harness does not encourage the dog to pull unless they already have a prior association of pulling with it and if they do have an association with it, find a different harness to create a new no-pulling association. While loose-leash-walking-training is in progress, drive to the park and use a long line (10 metres) to give your dog sniffing opportunities without pulling on the lead.

  • 2. Environment - Start in a low distraction environment, like your lounge room. Continue in areas like your back yard, then your front yard, then the driveway.

  • 3. Follow Me! The principles of loose leash walking are essentially teaching your dog to follow you, not the other way around, and praising your dog for being beside you and focussed on you. They get rewarded for stopping when you stop. Beside you is the best place for your dog to be because that’s where they love to hang out and all the good stuff happens. When dogs pull on the lead they are rewarded by getting where they want to go and we get pulled along behind them. Instead, you want to reprogram your dog’s thought process so that they think having a loose leash is what enables them to move forward.

  • At very first we work on eye contact:

And this is what this leads to after the first few sessions of practise:

Remember to start in your living room and only once you can solidly take 10 steps with your dog on a loose leash that stops next to you when you stop and offers eye-contact voluntarily, you can go to work in a slightly more difficult environment such as your backyard. But start at 0-1 steps again before working your way up to 10 steps. Now you can gradually start working in your driveway, a quiet park and so on..