My Puppy Won’t Walk on Leash! it can be a little tricky getting some puppies to walk on leash, because some puppies get scared as soon as they feel even a slight tug. What method should you use to train? My general rule of thumb is that we should use methods that focus on rewarding the correct behavior, starting with steps the dog can easily perform and quickly moving on to steps that are closer and closer to our goal behavior let’s take 5-10 minutes to retrain the walking, step by step. Rely on combining rewards for desired behavior and removal of rewards for unwanted behavior. Stage 1 Step 1: Practice off leash in a puppy-safe, potty safe area and reward puppy for setting. Give one treat for sitting and additional treats for remaining seated. Once you have her undivided attention, then you run the other way to incite a chase. And stop after 5-7 steps, before she catches up. When she gets to you, she sits and gets a reward. Now she has the idea that it’s fun to follow you. To see this in action watch this video: How to Start Your Puppy Off Right and Stay on Track).https://youtube/watch?v=6CG4W7v1_34#t=231 Step 2: Next, repeat the same process with a lightweight leash attached to her flat collar so she gets used to the feel of the leash. Of course, make sure that she can’t get it snagged on anything or you’ll be adding an extra day or two to your training! Step 3: After you’ve practiced that a couple of times you’re ready to hold the leash. In fact, you can often skip that leash dragging stage. The puppy already used to following you when you sprint or head the other way. So, you can walk but with quick little steps so it looks like you are sprinting to get her to follow after you. Make sure that you keep the leash in a loose arc the entire time. ______________________________________________________ Step 3 alternative: Alternatively you can go for variation two. Walk to the end of the leash, but without letting the leash tighten. We want to avoid any pressure at first since pressure might scare her. When you get to the end, remain with your body facing forward while looking back at your puppy or face your body slightly sideways so you can see her more easily. Then lure her to you with a treat. Do this 3-6 times in a row or more until you can rapidly walk away and when you stop and lure she readily catches up to you when she sees the treat. Next, repeat the process but don’t show her the treat until after she catches up to you. Once she follows you 3-6 times, she will most likely start to walk with you as you begin to walk away. ___________________________________________________ What if she still balks when she feels pressure even if she can follow you on leash? If you have a puppy who follows nicely by this stage but still balks once she feels pressure on the leash, you can move to Stage 2 of training where you train her that pressure on the leash is ok. Stage 2: Put a tiny bit of pressure on her leash while waving a really tasty treat so she thinks more about the treat than about how the pressure might scare her. If you’re careful about staying below the pressure that triggers a fear response, then she’ll soon just automatically follow you. Repeat as with Stage 1 of training. ___________________________________________________ Use the collar grab protocol: thinkpawsitivedog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Hand-On-Collar.jpg Stage 3 of training: a variation of the technique for training dogs to love collar grabs. The reason a love of collar grabs is essential for puppies is that later on in life you’ll want to be able to grab your dog’s collar in an emergency without worrying that he will freak out and bite. Here’s the gist of this method: With leash and collar on and you right next to your puppy, pull very gently, not enough to move your puppy. Then within a split second of starting the tiny tug, place a yummy treat into your puppys face. The goal is to train the puppy that the slight pressure on the collar equals a big yummy treat. When you’ve done that maybe 3-5 times and you’re sure she’s just thinking “food” every time her collar gets slightly tugged, you can increase the tug. The trick to this method is that you need to stay below the level that causes her to show signs of anxiety or fear. We want her to develop a positive association so stay at the level where she is always just thinking “Cool! Treat!” when she feels the tug. If you approach this systematically, you can progress quickly—within just one to a handful of short sessions in the standard puppy with this type of issue. thinkpawsitivedog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Hand-On-Collar.jpg
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 02:08:44 +0000
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