24 AprEpisode 50 | How to train your dog to walk on a loose leash
Leashes, collars and harnesses are some of the first accessories most dog owners acquire when they get a dog, and very soon they come to depend on these tools. But, in this guide to teaching a dog to walk on a loose leash, Annie suggests teaching where you want your dog to walk in relation to your body (right next to your leg), and what you want your dog to be doing on leash (checking in with you often) before you start relying on equipment to control your dog's behavior. This episode contains suggestions on training exercises to help teach nice walking (with or without a leash), protocols for encouraging good behaviors on leash, and gear recommendations.
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Transcript:
Annie:
Hey, everyone. Thank you for tuning in. Today’s topic is loose leash walking.
Now I’m going to talk about how to walk the dog, like how you should be walking and what equipment you can use. I want to talk about what behaviors you’re going to reward and where you're gonna reward and then I’m going to give you two exercises that you can work on when you're trying to practice your dog’s loose leash walking.
But first, I want to talk for a minute about what you want your dog to look like on leash or what you want your walks to look like on the leash? What do you want to look like with your dog on leash? Take a moment to conjure up sort of the perfect image of what a walk should be there. I don’t think there is really a right or wrong answer; I just want you to think about what you want your walks to look like so you can work towards that goal.
I mention this because there is a man in my neighborhood who for years I’ve seen him walking his dog in this sort of militaristic- style. The dog, who is a big dog, his neck probably is close to the guy’s hip and this guy holds the leash super tightly- there's maybe 1 foot of leash between his hand and the dog’s neck or I think maybe he walks him on some kind of like head harness, anyway, they just look so tense, both of them, that they stress me out every time I see them- I want to like give both of them a massage. Anyway, at one time I was sitting in the park with my dog on a bench and this guy came and sat down on a park bench near me with his dog and we started chatting a little bit and I couldn't resist saying something, I was nice about it, but I said something like, “I notice your dog walks really close to you”, or something like that, it wasn't super judgy and he said something like, “ well how a dog is supposed to walk. Outside time isn’t about fooling around. “ So fair enough.
But that’s not my idea of how my dog is supposed to walk. My vision of the perfect walk, if I were to paint a watercolor of it, would be my dog walking near me with a very loose leash, ideally no tension on the leash and I want us to kind of be paying attention to each other's needs. So if I need to go in one direction, I want him to be aware of that and go in that direction with me. If he needs to stop and pee or poop, I want to be tuned in enough where I'm going to stop too. And if he wants to do something that's not necessary as peeing and pooping, if he just wants to sniff around check his pee-mail, as we all it, I want to give him the chance to do that because I think that's a really important part of being on a walk and it's not so important to me that the two of us be walking in some sort of lockstep. I also want to make sure he's checking in with me a lot, you know, I'm a grown up on the walk, afterall, I’m in charge of keeping us both safe but it's possible to teach a dog to pay close attention to you when you're outside without having an taut leash. Actually it's possible to have your dog paying great attention to you on your entire walk without having a leash on your dog at all. Now I’m not recommending that you want your dog without a leash but I think you should be able to if you really had to or you could.
About five years ago, I survived a huge apartment fire. There was just some sort of electrical problem in one of the walls in my apartment- I live in a very old building and I literally had to run out of my apartment with basically just my cat, my dog, my jacket and my wallet. Fortunately no one was hurt. My other neighbors got out but one of my upstairs neighbor had to be carried out by the firemen ‘cause she didn’t get out fast enough and she also had a dog and the dog was also carried out and she had to go the hospital because of smoke inhalation and before they put any ambulance she handed me her dog and I ended up staying at my neighbor’s across the street on their couch with my dog, her dog and my cat. And in the morning when I went to go walk my dog and her dog I realized I only had one leash, I had my dog’s leash and not her dog’s leash because the firemen had carried her out of the apartment. So I put the one leash I had on Daisy, my neighbor's dog, who was a little Corgi and I walked her and my dog around the block with my dog off leash, which was really no problem, he stayed right near me he, like I said, he is good at walking close to me even without a leash. But, lo and behold, someone on the street saw me with this one dog unleashed and just let me have it. Oh my God. She was livid, how dare I be so irresponsible as to walk my dog without a leash and I think I just stared at her dumbfounded. I didn't have it in me to explain to her that I had just run out of the burning building and my neighbor's dog's leash had gone up in flames.
All of that is to say that if you have a huge apartment fire and you find yourself outside without a leash, I would hope that you wouldn’t panic because you should have a dog who knows to walk right near you and to check in with you often in case you need to get your dog's attention.
Now I want to talk a little bit about equipment but I first wanted to talk a little bit about how we should think about walking dogs because I think people tend to rely too heavily on equipment. Frequently, we have people come into our shop at School for the Dogs and say, “what's the best leash for walking my dog” and as if it's like the leash that contains magical properties that will help your dog walk well. And my feeling is you want to a leash as close to dental floss as possible. I like a thin, lightweight but sturdy leash and for some reason it's typical to think that for a big dog you need a thick big leash and for a little dog, you need a thin, little leash. I think you should go as thin as possible always. If you have a sturdy, thin nylon leash you have to really be walking an elephant of a dog pulling you like crazy in order to break it. And the reason I want a leash that is lightweight is because I want to feel it as little as possible and I want my dog to feel it as little as possible.
Again, I’m going to give you some tips to teach your dog to want to walk near you so that you're not having to control your dog with the leash. The leash should really be there just in case of an emergency. Of course, you have to have your dog on a leash in most places, certainly, most urban places, but the goal is not to be using the leash. Kind of like you have to wear a seatbelt but that doesn't mean that you drive like a maniac.
I also like hands-free leashes or leashes that you can click to your treat pouch with a really sturdy carabiner or, better yet, wrap around your waist. I have some clients who have very long leashes that they kind of throw over their shoulder and where like a cross body bag. Hands-free leashes are, well they're freeing. I find when I have both hands-free it's so much easier to deliver treats and it's just really nice to have two hands free. I also think it can help with walking because it can really establish a fixed distance so your dog knows sort of what his or her radius is, whereas if you have a leash in your hand, the radius is going to change based on where your arm is moving. So that’s another reason why I like having a waist leash. My favorite hands-free leash with my dog is the Found My Animal nylon leash. I like to use to use the thin one, like I said thin leashes. And it has these movable rings on it that you can use to adjust the way that you’re clipping it. They make a cotton version of this leash and a nylon version; I definitely prefer the nylon version and you don’t have to wear it as a hands free leash, you can certainly hold the end in your hand. I also really like the Mendota braided leashes. Those are not long enough to tie around your waist but those are very sturdy, lightweight nylon leashes that are soft in your hand and have a nice clip, thats, a sturdy and safe clip that’s not super heavy. Actually, I had a client once who’s dog refused to walk with her and that would only walk with her boyfriend and she had had two or three trainers, I think, come and try to work with this dog to figure out the issue. And I noticed that she and her boyfriend didn't walk the dog on the same leash, they both used different leashes and the leash that the boyfriend had had a much more lightweight clasp at the end. The leash that the girlfriend was using had a very heavy clasp at the end and it was banging the poor dog in the face as he was walking. So I had this very Sherlock Holmes moment of, “A Ha, It Is not the boyfriend that the dog prefers. It is the leash. And I think definitely dogs can be disturbed by thick clasps when they are banging in the dog's face so watch for that when you're picking a clasp.
I also tend to prefer trigger clasps which are class that sort of overlap on each other; the metal parts overlap each other, whereas like your typical sort of lobster- clasp style leash connection can just open up a little bit more easily and I find they are usually a little bit heavier.
Now once you pick out a leash you’re probably going to want figure out what you’re going to attach to the leash to. You know, I just want my dog on a flat collar, because, again, we use a leash like one would use a seatbelt. I try to not use it very often but, of Course, it's required to attach it somewhere so I attach it to his collar. However, if you have a dog who's pulling, at all or you're concerned they're going to pull; I do generally recommend using a front clip harness. The one that we sell and the one I like the best is called the Freedom Harness. It’s a front clip style harness that also has a clip on the back between the shoulder blades which is great because you can choose to clip it on the front; there might be situations where you're fine having your dog way out in front of you, you’re hiking or whatever you can have the dog clipped to his back and you can clipped the leash to both. I’ll talk about why you might want to clip it to both besides safety reasons but what’s nice about a front clip harness is when the leash is at their chest like that, the dog simply can't pull very far without being pulled back towards you. If you sort of think about the location of the attachment in that way, when they pull out, they are going to have to pull to the side and that's going to push them back to some extent.
Dogs also have a lot more weight to pull forward when they're attached at the back between the shoulder blades, where sort of like a typical harness attaches. If you think about it that's how sled dogs are attached to sleds, right, their back and when they start to pull forward and you pull backwards their natural instinct is going to be to pull against the leash, to pull forwards more. Front clip harnesses, kind of, counteract that. There are other brands of the front clip harnesses, Easy Walk is a well-known one; the Sense-ation is another one. The reason I like the Freedom Harness is because not only does it clip in the front but, like I said, it has the clip in the back and it also has a piece of, like a strap, that goes down the middle of the chest that keeps the whole thing in place because a lot of times I see people with their dog in an Easy Walk and the front clip is like all the way over at their shoulder which is not where it's supposed to be. The other problem with the Easy Walk is people are always putting it on their dogs upside down. You can tell because there's three straps, two of them are the same color and one is a different color and the one that’s a different color should be under their armpits. But, constantly, I see people’s dogs wearing it backwards and it;s so hard for me as a dog trainer to not go up to the person and correct how they put on their harness. Of course, nobody is particularly excited to have a stranger criticize how their dog is wearing their harness, so, in general, I do try and refrain.
The other nice thing about the the Freedom Harnesses is that they have velvet in the spot that goes under the dog’s armpits which is nice because on some dogs, especially dogs like pitbulls, who have really short hair and not so much hair sometimes get really irritated in that area so the velvet helps reduce the likelihood of chafing.
Also you might see people with their dogs in head halters, like I was mentioning the guy in my neighborhood has his dog in. I haven’t used those a whole lot. I think they can be useful if you have a dog who’s like a garbage eater because it does give you a lot more control over their head. It's like, kind of, like walking a dog more like you would walk a horse. But I think that unless you have someone who is really going to help you use that right, I would avoid it just because I think it can cause neck issues if you use it wrong. Also, dogs tend to not like wearing face halters. You can condition them to like wearing it but if you just put it on and try and go for a walk without doing some training first very likely you’re going to find your dog, sort of, like pushing his face all around the ground trying to get the thing off which is counterproductive.
Now once you have your dog all leashed up, harnessed up. You want to think about, of course, where you’re going to walk your dog and how you're going to walk your dog. Now if you have a puppy, keep It short and sweet. Being outside can be very overwhelming for a young dog or any dog who is new to the City, for sure. But certainly for a puppy, being on a leash, being in a harness, being in a collar, all of this, you know, we’re asking a lot of dogs by taking them outside at all in this get-up so keep your walk short and sweet if you have a young dog or a puppy.
If you have an older dog who needs to get more energy out and is a little bit more, maybe, accustomed to being in an urban environment and being on a leash and a harness, you might take a longer walk. I would suggest; however, if you're trying to teach your Dog to not pull on the leash to really pick up the pace. If you are walking fast, your dog is going to be a lot more focused on you. I also think it's a good idea to change directions a lot. This is another way to just help keep your dog's attention. When you're outside, you are a lot less interesting than everything else because your dog sees you all the time whereas outside is a never ending parade of new and exciting things and smells and sounds. So anything you can do to keep yourself the focus of attention to keep yourself exciting and fun you want to do. And switching directions, I think, helps your dog be like, “Oh my god, this woman or man or whoever you are is a really bad driver. I better pay attention to where she's going” rather than having your dog just thinking we walk forward all the time, I’m out ahead. The other thing is if your dog is in front of you and if your dog is pulling, if you switched directions, now your dog is behind you, sort of, like, resets the game in that way.
So walk fast so your dog is focused on keeping up with you rather than the other way around and be unpredictable with your path with, you know, sudden swift changes of direction so your dog is focused on figuring out where you're going rather than figuring out how to get that chicken bone over there into his mouth.
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So now you thought about what you want your walk to look like. You have geared up. You have figured out how you are going to walk in order to get the best kind of walking out of your dog, but now what are you going to reward? I mean you can say you are just going to reward nice leash walking but I want to be a little bit more specific than that. When you're working on leash walking you definitely want to have really great food rewards on you because, like I said, you are a lot less interesting than everything else outside so if you can up your dog's interest in you by creating an association between you and, say, hotdogs, I am all for it.
There is a piece of gear I didn't mention when we were talking about gear, which is a treat pouch. Definitely want to have something to hold your treats when you're outside, unless you’re really good at holding your treats in your hand while you're walking which is certainly easier when you have a hands free leash.
Anyway, select something really delicious that you can deliver without too much trouble. I mean, of Course, you can also just give your dog his or her meals while you're walking certainly you can deliver a kibble one piece at a time as a treat. But if you're just starting out, I would suggest choosing something more delicious than your dog's regular meal unless your dog is absolutely psyched about his or her regular meal. I like using Lickey Treats- things that dogs can lick outside because I find it's easier to deliver that kind of thing while you're walking without getting your hands really gross. We have something we sell called the Liquid Treat Dispenser which is just like a little tube, like a travel shampoo tube basically, but it's one that works really well for this. You can fill it with peanut butter or liverwurst or, oh gosh, cream cheese. You can put, what’s it called, orange spray cheese in it. I have some clients who use a camping tube that you can fill with your dog’s actual wet food, you can use that.
There's also products, there's one called Leanlix which are, they kind of look like hard deodorant that your dog can lick. And we use something called Kalles, K-A-L-L-E-S, at School for the Dogs, we have it in our shop, which is Swedish cod roe. It’s like a paste that comes in a tube. Sometimes we’ll use that, the dogs can lick that.
I should mention, you don't have to use food. I think for most dogs, food is the way to go but if you have a dog that’s not food-motivated or you just can't find something that’s gonna get your dog's attention outside, you can use a toy. You can bring a toy outside: a squeaky toy or a rope Toy or anything that your dog likes. A tennis ball that you can bounce. But you want to select something that you're going to use as a reward for your dog outside.
And what are you going to reward? Well, I suggest really working on eye contact outside. Thinking about rewarding your dog every time your dog checks in with you and, at first, that might not be really, like, locking eyes to you fully but even just a quick glance back at you is something that you can reward. You don't have to use a clicker to mark that exact moment the dog turns and looks at you, but I do suggest using a clicker, especially outside. I think the noise of, that sort of sharp, very, distinct noise can help focus your dog but you can also use a word if it is just too much to handle using a clicker outside. Like use the word “Yes” to mark the moment that your dog looks at you and then follow that up with your treat, whether a food reward or a quick game of tug. Of course, playing a quick game of tug outside is more time-consuming and complicated, which is again why I say, I probably would suggest you try using, like, little bits of hot dog, a licky treat first but do what you need to do.
If you were to reward nothing else except your dog checking in with you every time your dog checks in with you at first, I would do every time rather than just some of the time, you’re going to get a dog who's walking right near you on a loose leash because I also want you to think about where you're giving that food reward. I want you to be giving it where you want your dog to be walking and in this case that's right next to you. There's, sort of, like, a Magic Spot that is, like, near your knee for most dogs or near your ankle, depending on how tall your dog, he might be near your hip. But think about where your dog's head should be while you're walking. Where would you like his head to be and that's where you’re going to give that treat. Literally like touching your leg in that spot and, sometimes, when I'm working with clients I’ll even put a piece of tape in that spot just as a reminder of, this is where there, this is where we’re rewarding. There's a saying that dog trainers say sometimes,” You click for the behavior. You treat for position. Now the fact is the treat and the position is actually really more important, I think, then whatever it is that you're clicking for and it feels too complicated to click every time, or reward every time, your dog checks back at you. You can start by just giving a treat in that Magic Spot by your Leg every three Steps or sometimes I'll suggest picking a marker on the street, like, every bumper and every car that you see or every third crack in the pavement. Pick something that you're going to see at least 10 times in a block and every time you reach that thing, reward your dog at your knee- no matter what your dog is doing. I don't even care if your dog is pulling at the end of the leash, although, that shouldn't be happening because you should be rewarding your dog at such a high rate and, like i said, you should be walking fast, switching directions, your dog is going to be very focused on you to be, “like man, oh man. My human has suddenly become this magic cheese dispenser and there's this one spot on her leg that is particularly interesting to me right now and that's something I would like to focus on.” And if your dog is focusing on that spot on your calf, or wherever it is, that’s a dog that is going to be walking quite close to you and walking really nicely.
Now I’m not suggesting that you lure your dog with the treats that you're using. I want them to be out of sight most of the time; I want them to be in your treat pouch and I want them to appear in that area, that magic area, that magic zone that we’re talking about rather than having the treat in front your dog’s face the whole time. I want your dog to think about, “what do I need to do in order to make that treat appear,” rather than having your dog just be like, “there's food. I’m following the food, I’m following the food.” But, like i said in the very beginning, while working on this, like I said, you can you can reward for eye contact, whether or not you've asked for it, just anytime he checks back at you but, even sort of, an easier step than that, is rewarding your dog no matter what just in that one position. And this is a really great thing to practice in the hallway without your dog on a leash. You can practice leash walking without your dog on a leash and then just add the leash into the equation. Again, it should be really lightweight and loose, your dog should hardly feel it at all. So it shouldn't be a huge leap to go from practicing this in the hallway without a leash to practicing with a leash.
What you’re going to do is just walk up and down the hallway and every three steps, or every time you get to a neighbor's door, whatever, you're going to give that treat in the magic zone on your leg. Really like so many other things having to do with training, the idea is to start out with your criteria being nothing. When you practicing in the hallway, this way, whether or not your dog is on a leash when you practice, you’re just teaching a dog that all of this great stuff happens in that magic spot, that magic zone and you're going to achieve the behavior that you want, which is your dog walking right next to you, without specifically reinforcing that behavior. You are just building the dog's association that, “gosh, you know, really great stuff only happens in that one area by my person’s leg.”
Now, that doesn't mean you can't also reward good behaviors, good walking behaviors and that's why I was suggesting picking some kind of marker when you are outside, or even in your hallway, let's say every time you get to the neighbor’s door, if that leash has a bend in it or if your dog is checking in with you, click and treat, always in that magic zone, putting the treat magic zone.
More than anything else when you're working on loose leash walking and you’re not focusing on the leash and you’re not really focusing on the steps your dog’s taking either, as much as what you’re focusing on is getting and keeping your dog's attention. And, you know, when I mentioned that you’re not really doing is luring, the treat should appear, it shouldn’t be out all the time. That's true but there is one exception, which is if you're passing something that you're pretty sure is going to distract your dog, whether that be another dog or a posse of squirrels or whatever it is, then you might choose to give the treat, kind of, consistently whether, like rapid fire, again in that magic zone by your knee or if you givng something like peanut butter in a liquid treat dispenser- just giving it to your dog while you're walking past that other dog consistently, like, letting them lick it the whole time. What you're doing is keeping their focus on you and making your reward extra, extra good because, you know, it just keeps coming. And that is going to help your dog build the association of, you know, when I see another dog or when I see whatever it is, that doorman who is always trying to distract me or whatever, my human becomes extra exciting and so it pays to put my attention by his or her leg. Again always rewarding in that spot right near your knee or whatever- wherever it is depending on how tall your dog is.
There are a couple exercises that you can practice when you are not outside that might help your leash walking, like I mentioned practicing in the hallway. Another exercise that I like to have people practice is teaching their dog a place that you want them to stand, which ultimately can translate into a place where you want them to walk. Now a lot of people say I want my dog to heel and they’ll say “Heel, Heel.” But what does that really mean? I think what it means is there is a very specific kind of rectangular area or circular area, a zone, on one of your sides where you want your dog to basically station. Well, you can teach your dog to station in that place by simply shaping them to do that when you are standing next to that station. I’ve talked about shaping in previous episodes, I believe, I have a whole episode just on shaping.
A really good exercise is starting out with like a yoga mat, teaching a dog to go to yoga mat. What I like about like an inexpensive yoga mat is you can cut the yoga mat down to smaller and smaller sizes to the point of, like, teaching a dog to go to something the size of the post-it, a yoga mat post-it, which is useful for so many reasons, this certainly being one of them. You can have like, you know, a piece of printer paper size cut up piece of yoga mat and teach your dog that when you are standing next to it you want your dog to be standing on that mat and then you can work up to walking with your dog in that position as well. I have some clients who use a cue for this, they call the cue “heel.” You can also teach your dog to target something on your leg with your dog's nose or even a little bit, more advanced, teaching shoulder targeting. If you can teach your dog, on cue, to touch his or her shoulder to your leg and then that too is a really great heel position.
Another exercise that I think is a nice one to work on, sometimes called silky leash, and I’ll link to some examples of silky leash in the show notes. But essentially what you're doing is teaching your dog directionality, kind of, like horses are taught, I believe, I have never done any horse training. But a horse is taught when they feel pressure on their right side, they need to move right, when they feel pressure on the left side, they need to move left. You can do this with a dog leash as well basically you're going to stand, I have usually started this by standing in front of a dog with a leash taut and you very gently start pulling in one direction, on the right or the left and you click and treat as soon as your dog goes in that direction at all- you’re teaching “when I feel pressure on one side that's the side I go to go to, whatever. I mentioned one nice thing about that Freedom Harnesses is that it connects in two places; one thing i like using Freedom Harness for is this silky leash style training because it's all the more places where your dog is going to feel that pressure and if you ultimately then switch to just using a harness or you just to start using a front clip or back clip harness or whatever, your dog is going to have the experience of learning that pressure in either one of those areas indicates which way you want your dog to turn. And this can be really useful because it’s just all the more information were giving our dogs about how we want them to walk and where we want them to walk.
Something else that I have found that I do with my dog is I’ll make a little “clk, clk” sound when where changing direction and I never specifically set out to teach this, I just kinda started doing it and he started to catch on that when he hears that little noise, he needs to pay attention to some sort of change in route. And, you know, I think about what other clues and cues you can give your dog to help him or her on his walk.
nother great habit to get into is teaching your dog on walks is to stop at a curb. Now if you have a really solid sit cue you could cue your dog to sit when you get to the curb but you don't even need to get your dog into a sit- really what you want your dog to understand is that they need to stop at the curb. And if you stop and give you a treat at every curb and you just get into that habit, that alone is gonna start teaching your dog, “gosh, we got to the curb, I know there's gonna be a treat here before we start moving.” Now are you always going to have to give a treat? No. But you want to do it enough times that your dog starts to think that it's a good idea to wait for that treat when he or she gets to the curb. Again, you could cue a sit and then certainly you can reward the sit, but you are going to find that the curb itself becomes a cue for your dog to stop. And when you start walking again, whenever I’m practicing any stopping or sitting on a walk, not only will I give a food reward or if I’m using a tug toy to reward, whatever not only will I give those things, I’ll also start walking really fast and, sort of, make the return to walking extra exciting. You know, your working with movement when you're working on walking and movement, I think for most dogs is very exciting so use that to your advantage .
Now of course as I’m saying that I'm thinking about all the clients I work with through the years who have dogs who have the opposite problem who are not motivated by movement, they do not want to walk. And to some extent, you know, I think we have breed certain breeds of dogs, for sure, to not be great walkers. You can't have an English Bulldog and expect to run marathons with him. Of course you do want to motivate them to walk to some extent, you can keep those walks short. However, I think teaching targeting, whether it's teaching the dog to target your hand by your leg or to target like piece of tape on your leg. Both of those methods can be good ways to motivate a dog to walk or teaching your dog to touch a target stick which, you know you can get an official dog target stick , even have clicker sticks you can use with a clicker at the end but, you know, a spatula wooden spoon, a flyswatter, anything that you can kinda hold out in front of your dog. Again it's not luring the dog with food but anything that you can hold out in front of the dog to get the dog to move forward, use that. In those cases, you might choose to toss the treat out in front of you, I would use something that will be easily spottable when you toss it. Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of tossing treats onto the ground when I'm working with dogs outside just because I don't want them to get in the habit of picking things up off the ground but if you have a dog who really won't budge that can be a way to get a couple extra feet in front of you. Sort of alternate, have them touch the target stick and then toss a treat and now you've gotten 8 feet perhaps.
Another option which can keep you from having to toss the treat on the ground can be to get a long spoon and put some peanut butter at the end of the spoon and reward your dog out in front of you with that bit of peanut butter. Again, I would first have the dog target something that doesn't, that isn't smeared with something delicious and then reward them with the yummy thing. I think this will help you eventually not have to be a peanut butter dispenser when you’re outside as opposed to getting peanut butter as a lure. But delivering peanut butter in that kind of way can also help you motivate a dog to move when your dog doesn’t want to move. Again you are going to have him touch the target stick or target your leg or whatever and then eat peanut butter out in front of you and repeat.
But you know, sometimes if you dog who is not enthusiastic about walking, plants as we say, you know, sometimes, I find, if I have time, a good solution for that is that I just stop too. Rather than cajoling the dog or starting to do some training both those things might actually reinforce the behavior of stopping and not moving, you know, you're better off working to get a dog to walk before the dog stops because once the dog stops almost anything you do is going to reinforce them having stopped. Sometimes what I’ll do is I'll just stop too. Obviously, I don't have time to do this, sometimes you do need to get somewhere with a dog, in that case, if it’s a smaller dog, I’ll often just pick the dog up- clearly they’re sending a message that they don’t want to walk. Message received. But if i have time, you know, it is- it's the dog’s walk and if that is what the dog wants to spend the walk doing, okay so be it, I’m going to stop too. Just stand there and be really boring. And what I find is that eventually dogs grow bored of this game and realize that it’s actually not that rewarding to stop, especially if most of your walks are rich with reinforcers, if you are spending your walks on rewarding your dog in that magical spot by your leg and reinforcing any moment that you notice you checks in with you, loose leash etc. etc. Just being a statue in the street is going to be not as interesting as the other things that happen during your walks.
So I hope you take some of these tips. I hope they work out for you and let me know how it goes. You can get in touch on Instagram, we are there at School for the Dogs. And if you have a question about walking or anything at all feel free to ask me.
Next week , I believe, I am going to do a Q&A episode, so I’m still sifting through questions, would love to get yours. You can ask a question at anniegrossman.com/ask.
Fun fact of the day: In New York City, I only just recently learned this, dog leashes actually have to be 6 feet long. I don't know if they're allowed to be shorter than that but they can't be any longer than that. So especially if you see people using big retractable leashes and their dogs are way out in front of them, you may want to remind them of that. A reason I don't like retractable leashes, I have a couple reasons why I don't love them for walking in the city, there are other situations where I think they’re fine. But walking in the city I think that you, like I was saying before about why I like that having waist leases, you want to learn the radius that is allowable and if you have a retractable leash that radius is constantly changing. Another thing about retractable leashes is that they’re always taut, your dog is always feeling that taut feeling, unless you lock the leash and let your dog go out, take, have it be slack but most people don’t use retractable leashes in that way. You know another problem about retractable leashes is that if you drop it, it can snap towards your dog which can be very scary to a dog having this big plastic thing zooming towards them. But the main reason I am not a fan of retractable leashes is I don't like having a regular leash in my hand, like that I like having my hands as free as possible and having a big hunk of plastic in my hand just messes me up and makes it harder for me to deliver treats.
Woof Shout out today goes out to long time School for the Dogs student, Hazelnut. Hazelnut, I think, is a mutt- she probably has some Pitbull in her or maybe, even some, gosh, I don’t know, Basenji or Rhodesian Ridgeback, she’s a little low to the ground though. Anyway this from her trainer, Rhy, who works with her during our day school program. Rhys writes to me, “Hazelnut has made loads of progress. She is the unlikely best dog for settling in the morning and leagues better at engaging/disengaging from polite play thanks to helper dogs and her excellent recall. Hazelnut has also done much better, recently, with not reacting to dogs and skateboards and loud spooky things when I take her out for walks. She checks in often and will maintain eye contact. We’re really getting into some fun targeting when we avoid triggers” –targeting being what we were talking up earlier in this episode. “She's also trimmed down at bit. I like to think it's because when she comes to Day School, we usually run up the block, back to school after she potties. She loves to run even though she's tiny, I have to run hard so we keep pace. “ Anyway, Hazelnut, we love you. Thanks for being such a good pupil and really glad that you and the wonderful Rhys have such a good relationship.
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