Teaching Loose Lead walking with your dog

• Hardest thing to teach, takes time.
• At first, choose a non stimulating environment, garden or quiet field.
• Do it in stages, to learn properly.
• Holding the lead, have your hands at your waist... no tension on the lead
• Do 'Drunk walking' – ie Walk 5 steps in any direction, change direction, sideways, circle, diagonal, backwards, continue.
• If lead is slack, say 'Good' or a happy 'YES'! + reward with food to dog’s mouth.
• Don’t put any cue word in yet, like ‘Heel or ‘Let’s go’, dog doesn’t understand what this means.

The 4 components of Dog Learning

• Dogs learn by connecting their body Action, with the Hand movement (which eventually becomes the hand signal, the Verbal cue + the Reward
• ACTION by dog / HAND Signal by human / + Reward for dog + Verbal Cue word = LEARNING.
• Introduce the Command word WITH the Action.

Initially

• Don’t have food in the hand as a lure for a loose lead.
• The behaviour, loose lead should make me say 'Good or 'Yes' and then feed the dog
• Walking with me is the cue for a slack lead
• This is classical conditioning....the dog learns that slack lead means ‘a verbal Good’ and gets rewarded.
• Once this is imbedded, we move to operant conditioning

Move on to:

• When walking and lead goes slack, don’t immediately say Good, wait till dog looks at me, then say Good and reinforce with reward. The checking in with me gets rewarded.
• Deliver consequences for behaviour.
• The dog is LEARNING’ the behaviour AND checking in...brings reward. Learning.
• So, dog is learning that when on the move, and I look at owner, I get rewarded
• Dog can’t look and pull at the same time

 Add Distance, Duration + Distraction.

• Add more Distance before we turn
• Add more Duration when eyes connect and us saying good
• Practice in a Distracting environment – initially up and down the pavement outside your house.
• Work towards not needing food, but that he checks in to you as his reward.
• Reward early and often.
• Use your voice to bridge the gap between distraction and reward, with ‘hey, treat, yes’  type words.
• Put a ‘Let’s Go’ command in as the cue word to walk.
• If dog pulls in front, stand still, + wait for her to come back to heel, or change direction.

 Why might your dog ignore you?
1. Environment – dog starts to pull as soon as you go out the door. Start in house or garden. So, break things down for them so they achieve some success. up and down the pavement, Get a win and end that session.
2. Lead tension, don’t reward if tight, let it hang down in a ‘smile shape’. Lots of little adjustments are better than a big fix.
3. Manage your pace, not too slow, move purposely and deliberately, dog will be less distracted. Make turns.
4. Inconsistency. Keep up the training and be consistent.
5. Poor ‘Value’ and frequency of reward. Have a great food reward the dog loves and as frequently as necessary.

Equipment Choices
A normal collar and lead, not a retracting lead.
A Harness with 2 attachments, one on the back, one in the front, (or on the collar).
A head collar - Halti, Gencon often helps, but not if the dog pulls against it. 

Jill Timms BCCSDip.Adv.DogBhv – Canine Behaviourist and Dog Trainer.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/K9DreamersDogTraining/

So, who would have thought we would be here... ? In the Dog house? or should I say, in the house with the dog. Full time, in lockdown. At the very least.. this time will go down in history, infamous, almost inevitable, who knows, I am not one to judge and actually keeping out of that as much as I can, I hope you are too, but that is really the purpose of this particular K9Dreamers 'Dog Blog'. How are we doing?
As well as coping, I want us to prepare for the unlocking and normality!!! 
I would like to flag up a few topics for consideration, thought and application.
Most of this can be done in the safety of your own house and garden.
1. Separation Anxiety - Your dog loves you being at home, why not?
Even now, leave you dog alone for short periods of the day, on return ignore the dog for a few mins, act normal, no big deal. Go put your bag down, put the kettle on... then calmly say hi. They will thank you for this.
2. Socialisation - If you have a puppy or a young dog, socialise as far as you can with sounds, hats, pictures, different surfaces etc. Download a CD with Dog Sensitisation sounds, play at low level and increase.
3. Routines V Flexibility? - Our dogs thrive on routines, as far as possible try to stick to a routine your dog already knows. More on this soon...
4. Enrichment. This is a phrase we use when we talk about bringing an extra level of enjoyment, fulfillment, brain activity and pleasure to our dogs, who need this as much as you or me. They were bred to seek, sniff, search, chase, lick, chew, climb, jump and explore. All of which are relaxing and hugely fulfilling for a dog whatever the breed, moreso for some breeds. In your garden create an obstacle course with hidden things to sniff and find, a mini agility run, use licky mats, Kongs and maybe teach tricks of -Touch, Speak, play dead, catch treats, twists and turns, middle, jump through arms.. you get my drift.. (All on YouTube)
5. Arousal and Over arousal. After all of this input, we don't want our dogs to reach overarousal. (Check out the earlier blog on the Arousal Bucket).
Learn to read and recognise when your dog is getting to 'Threshold'. ie, too excited, to the point when he makes bad decisions, and reacts with 'mouthing, barking , lunging or even snapping'.
Stop the play activity before that point, and let your dog rest and de-stress.
He will love you for this, and it is vital for the young dog.
So, take care, stay safe, chat soo. I am available via my contact details here. 
[email protected]
07814 147638

It is a journey. Every day, every moment with our dogs. We walk the walk. If we are good dog owners, we learn, we learn more, we put things into practice, we ask and take advice, we grow our knowledge, we live with our dogs, we love our dogs and don't want to fail them, all because we love the connection we have with our 'Furfaces'.
This 'connection'.. has roots, going back to the Canis Lupus, the original Wolf, who through a mutually beneficial relationship with village dwellers, became Canis familiaris... our domesticated dogs.
Now, our dogs need and love that connection with their humans. We talk about us reading our dogs body language and signals, but they read ours too, incredibly accurately.
​They are so connected! A well trained dog can 'know my emotions, read my hand signals, even pre-empt what I am going to ask of them. They just know. So, The Journey... ALWAYS know there is more you and your dog can learn together, if you want to... ;) 

​
​Are you a REACTIVE or PROACTIVE Dog owner?
This is the difference.
(Quote from the DTC 'Reactive Rascals' training Manual)
"The reactive trainer waits for a situation to occur then tries to manage it. The proactive trainer on the other hand, plans their walks and has lots of tools in their toolkit to manage the situations they are faced with before they become a problem. They ensure their dog knows the tools before they need to be used in a real life situation".
As for me... I am a Proactive dog trainer.
Preparation, dog and human awareness and training is key. 🐾😃🐾