Episode #185 Tips for Successful Leash Walking

Ever wondered how a simple walk could strengthen the bond between you and your dog? This episode of the Puppy Training Podcast promises to transform your daily strolls into enjoyable and rewarding experiences. Discover the secret to successful leash walking, starting with the crucial step of acclimating your dog to their surroundings. By allowing your furry friend to sniff, explore, and relax before hitting the pavement, you’ll not only provide essential mental stimulation but also reduce anxiety. We’ll also share effective techniques for maintaining a loose leash, like using a longer leash for exploration and engaging in fun attention games to keep your pup focused.

Chapters

• 0:00 Tips for Successful Leash Walking
• 9:43 Building a Strong Bond Through Walking

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Puppy Training Podcast, episode 185, tips for Successful Leash Walking. This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning, as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the Puppy Training Podcast, and I'm your host, amy Jensen. Hello and welcome to the way. This is the puppy training podcast and I'm your host, amy Jensen. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I am so excited.

Speaker 1: 0:30

Summer is here, temps are warm and I really enjoy seeing people being active outdoors with their dogs. It's just nice to see people again. Right, walking is one of those activities people like to do with their dogs. People get a dog and they think I want to go on a walk, I want to take my dog on a walk, and that's a great goal. Doesn't a nice relaxing walk around the block sound lovely? It really does. If you have an older dog, hopefully you've done your homework on this and the two of you are happily exploring the trails together. If you have a new puppy, don't worry. I know it can be frustrating, but you'll get there. This is something that takes time and some maturity on your dog's part, but we have lots of tips and tricks for you to help make it a better experience. So, that said, I do have some tips I want to share with you today about leash walking. I want to talk about acclimation that's something that we often just skip right over and how acclimation can help improve your walks together, no matter the age or stage of your dog and their current leash walking abilities. So let's talk about the importance of acclimation. I also want to talk about the benefits of allowing your dog to sniff and relax on some of these walks and effective techniques for maintaining a loose leash. We don't want our dogs dragging us around right. Nobody likes that, at least I don't. So today I want to help you with leash walking Now.

Speaker 1: 1:46

The first step to a successful walk, in my opinion, is acclimation. It's easy to just put our dog's leash on and start walking right away. Your dog is excited to go explore and sniff, and I know you want to get some exercise, so let's get to it. But acclimation is easy to overlook and so effective if you just allow your dog to do it. What I mean by that is I want you to allow your dog to acclimate to their surroundings before you begin a walk, because this will significantly enhance the experience that you both have Now. Acclimation involves giving a dog time to adjust to their environment before starting the walk. Now, many of us we are practicing at home, basically walking with these new puppies that come right. We're practicing indoors first, then we're taking it outside to our yards, maybe we're taking it to our driveways. Uh, once they're fully vaccinated, we're taking them to parks and some to some new places.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Every time we go to a new place or a new training area, if you will, I want you to let your dog acclimate. So, again, letting them adjust to this new environment, let them have time to familiarize themselves with the sights, the sounds, the smells of this area. This can greatly reduce any anxiety they might feel and excitement that they might have. A calm and focused dog is more likely to respond to your cues and engage positively with you. So can you see how we get to this new area? Our dogs are super excited. They want to sniff and smell and explore and see and just explore really what's going on around them. They don't know where they are. Maybe it's a new area that they've never been to before and, yeah, they're really excited. So if we just start walking, can you see how this might not go well? They just want to pull in every direction and check things out. So just let them acclimate. Give them five to 10 minutes to just sniff the area. I like to bring a longer leash with me that helps them be able to go and explore a little bit more without me having to like jog along to keep up to try to keep that leash loose a little bit more, without me having to like jog along to keep up to try to keep that leash loose. So I like to take, like a 10 foot leash, a 15 foot leash, and just stand still and then they get the radius of that leash to just sniff and check out the area.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Sniffing is a natural behavior for dogs and it serves multiple purposes it provides them with mental stimulation, it helps them gather information about their environment and it acts as a natural calming activity. So that really can help your dog, right, if you just let them sniff, let them check out the area, that can calm them down naturally. Now, when a dog is allowed to sniff and explore, it helps them release tension and become more relaxed, which again just sets the positive tone for that walk. That's upcoming. Now, when do we start walking? You ask once your dog has thoroughly sniffed the area within that leash radius that we talked about and offers you their attention. So if you stay in one area, your dog will sniff the area and eventually I promise they will look at you as if to say, okay, I'm done, can we please move now? I want you to reward that check-in and then I like to play a little attention game next. So I'll toss a food reward away from me, I'll let my dog go collect it and then, when they look back at me, I toss another one in a different direction, and I repeat this several times until my dog is quickly looking to me for the next reward to be tossed. Now I have their attention in this new environment and we are ready to work. One thing you're going to have to do with this is be patient. It's going to take a few minutes for your dog to get to the point where they want to look at you and they're done exploring their new little space. But this game can help your dog realize looking at you as rewarding and beneficial, even in the new environment.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Building this focus is important for effective leash walking, now that my dog knows checking in is worth it. Leash walking is going to go more smoothly. Check-ins involve rewarding the dog anytime they look at you or walk beside you. I focus mostly on check-ins, especially with these young puppies, so I'm going to allow them as we start to walk and move. Yeah, they can still sniff and look around a little bit, but anytime they look back at me and check in with me or line up next to my leg as a check-in awesome, that's what I want I'm going to reward that. The more I reward that, the more often they're going to stay by me or check in with me, meaning they look back at me. Right, and by looking back at me they're waiting for me. They're keeping that nice, beautiful J shape in the leash, which is what we're wanting. So this positive reinforcement encourages our dogs to maintain eye contact and stay close.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Promoting a loose leash Now maintaining eye contact. They're not going to have constant eye contact. It's not very comfortable for them to turn their heads and look at us and continue walking forward constantly. So I don't expect that. I do expect them to look out into their environment, maybe a sniff to the side a little bit as we continue moving a nice. Even six foot leash gives them space as we start to do the walking that they can sniff a little bit and then check in and then sniff a little bit and check in. We're not necessarily stopping to sniff things but, yeah, they can definitely look around and notice their environment as we're moving. But every time they look at me, every time they check in with me, they get a great reward for that and I'm promoting the idea of them wanting to do that more and more often, which again keeps that beautiful J shape in the leash that we want.

Speaker 1: 6:50

Now some other techniques for loose leash walking. Uh, remember, we can't follow a pulling puppy, right? If? If the puppy is pulling or the dog is pulling and we just follow them and they're pulling along to get to where they want to go. And here we come, just following along after them. Pulling works, that's what we're teaching them. And if a dog learns that pulling works, guess what they will continue to pull. If I can teach my dog that pulling doesn't work, guess what? They stop pulling and they figure out a different way to move forward, which for us is a nice loose leash. So remember, following a pulling puppy can reinforce unwanted behavior, making walks stressful and unmanageable. Instead, let's use some techniques to just help the dog focus on you and maintain that loose leash.

Speaker 1: 7:32

So number one tip would be change directions. Become unpredictable to your dog. Changing direction before the dog starts to pull can teach your dog to pay closer attention to your movements. Now, when I change directions I usually will cue let's go, so that they know oh, something's about to happen. I better pay attention to Amy, right, and then I take turns to the right and I turn to the left. I like to make a figure eights. Okay, just change directions, be a little bit unpredictable.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Number two is circling around. Walking in circles can change a pulling dog and redirect its attention back to you. So you'll see me turning just circles to the right. Right, we'll go counter. What is it Counterclockwise? And then we'll change and we'll go clockwise. We'll make circles to the left and circles to the right. So I'm pretty entertaining as I walk these dogs when they're first new to leash walking. But anytime I start to see my puppy kind of get out in front of me where they might make that leash go tight, let's go, we change direction and I might just do a few circles. Okay, so you can pair those two together.

Speaker 1: 8:27

The next one would be vary your speed as we talk about unpredictability, change it up, mix up the pace, speed up, slow down. And I like to accentuate these changes so I might jog for a few steps and then really walk very slowly. You'll notice again. Your dog starts to pay attention to you because you are doing unpredictable things. Right now we don't want to use the leash in any way to maneuver our dogs. We want them to move with us so you can always cue them Um. But they're going to start to pay attention to your body movements. They're going to pay attention to the pace that you were going and they'll naturally speed up with you and slow down with you. Just by them checking in and noticing your adjustments, they will make adjustments. By integrating these techniques we can create a more engaging and enjoyable walking experience. So rewarding the dog for desired behaviors Remember, when they're walking by our side or they're checking in, they're looking our way we want to reinforce with positive rewards. So food rewards are great. Usually a high value treat is something that I carry with me, especially in the training process. I always want to make those check-ins worth it to my dog and then they're better able to maintain that nice loose leash. We're basically setting them up for success right Now.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Acclimation, again, is a foundational step in leash walking. So don't forget the acclimation part of this. Let your dog just check out the area, let them sniff, let them explore until they calm down, they relax, are able to give you their attention and then you start the leash walk. If you start it too soon, without the acclimation, you'll just be battling against them and we don't want that. We want cooperation. So allow that dog to sniff and relax and then start the walk.

Speaker 1: 10:05

We've now reduced anxiety, we've reduced excitement, we're enhancing the focus right. And then remember, try those check-ins. Uh, rewarding the check-ins right, changing directions, circling around, changing up the speed, because all of those things can prevent the pulling and ensure that the dog remains attentive to you. By prioritizing acclimation and then using these strategies, we can foster enjoyable walking routines, and walking is something that's just nice to do with your dog, it strengthens your bond and it's good time spent together. So give these things a try. Let me know how it goes. Have a great week and happy training. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question. Visit my site, baxter and Bellacom, to contact me.