after some advice please. Hollie is now 7 months and is a terrible puller on her lead and 'no pull' harness outside of the house (perfect heel position and loose lead in house and garden). After reading Pippa's articles on lead walking and loose lead we now know that we have been doing it all wrong, as in we have rewarded her for pulling being let off lead at the end of her 'walk' to play in the field, even the stop walking every time she pulls, change direction didn't work!!!! it was a complete nightmare. So we are now driving to her off lead area's and for the last 3 days I've been doing 2 lead training sessions of 10 minutes which is only on lead. I started with only clicking when in position and treated, we then started to walk but she would dive into the pull straight away so i would stop and wait but she wasn't 'getting' that in order to walk i wanted her to have a loose lead she was only getting that when i stopped she had to be in that position (if you know what i mean). so now I'm clicking her every few steps when she is in position and treating her every other click, when she pulls forward i stop dead and wait for her to come back into position (which she does 9 out of 10 times on her own the other i have to get her attention and then she comes) i then start c&t process again.we are getting on a good session 500 meters with her in position without a pull, other times its maybe 20 strides. 'Will i over use the click' using it every few steps she is in the heel/loose lead position. will i ruin the click for other training?? thanks in advance Esther
Re: lead walking I think you should treat every time you click. I know there are some (rather theoretical) discussions around about whether this is strictly necessary but I'd say in your situation it absolutely is necessary, and you'll be weakening your clicker training by not doing so. Apart from this, you can use the clicker to mark correct behaviour as much as you like. You should be reducing the rate you C&T over time, so you need to increase the steps she can go between C&T but if she still goes to pull, your treats are too low value, your distractions too high, or your rate of reinforcement too low, so don't be in a hurry to give her fewer treats.
Re: lead walking i am having similar problems now my dog pulls very badly when she is on the lead if i try lead walking it is impossible to try untill she has off lead time for about an hour when she is off lead she is running further away also she has recall but does not listen when she is first let off lead
Re: lead walking [quote author=sussex link=topic=9542.msg138241#msg138241 date=1421760946] i am having similar problems now my dog pulls very badly when she is on the lead if i try lead walking it is impossible to try untill she has off lead time for about an hour when she is off lead she is running further away also she has recall but does not listen when she is first let off lead [/quote] Sounds like you need to go back to basics with the lead walking. Don't let her get anything out of pulling. As soon as she does, stop moving or even start taking paces backwards until she comes back to you, then walk forwards again. It's time consuming and you can't get anywhere particularly fast when you're doing it, but I think it's really the only way to crack it. Try having entire on-lead walks, too, and also in your regular walks, clip the lead on and off throughout the walk so she doesn't have it in her head that getting let off the lead means she gets to hoon around for an hour before going back on. When I take the lead off, I always ask for some good behaviour afterwards - a sit/stay or walking to heel etc - for a little while (only a few paces sometimes) until I release them to go play. If she's running off immediately you unclip the lead, this may mean going back to using a high-value treat as a lure for the first few goes to keep her attention on you.
Re: lead walking i can get her to sit in the crate while i open it and then she gets out and sits to have the lead off but even with sausages she does not stay close as soon as she is free she galops around have just started using a whistle mainly indoors to call her to get food will try doing what you suggest if she has had a good run i can get a few yards of loose lead walking but not always
Re: lead walking Don't beat yourself up about it. Teaching a dog to lead walk takes time. It is, after all, quite an unnatural thing for the dog to do - walk by our side keeping station on us. There are a lot of hopeless people training lead walking out there. The other day I encountered a family, Mum, Dad and two girls with a little scrap of a black thing. Dad was obviously showing them 'how it was done' he marched ahead shouting heel. Sometimes the pup was in front of him sometimes, the pup was behind him sometimes it even pirouetted, but he kept on marching yelling 'Heel'. How on earth can the pup learn from that. No doubt the failure was blamed on 'that stupid dog'. Because I have spent many months training Molly I am a connoisseur of dog walkers. There are an awful lot of lousy ones out there. Their leads are permanently out in front of them, straight as a ramrod as the dog attempts to tow them along. This is far more common in small dogs where it is so much easier to ignore a pulling dog. Molly is 15 months now. Most of the time she walks nicely by my side. She still gets distracted by smells and other dogs, but I tell her 'Close' and she now knows that her place is walking by my side.
Re: lead walking [quote author=Mollly link=topic=9542.msg138295#msg138295 date=1421775621] Because I have spent many months training Molly I am a connoisseur of dog walkers. There are an awful lot of lousy ones out there. Their leads are permanently out in front of them, straight as a ramrod as the dog attempts to tow them along. This is far more common in small dogs where it is so much easier to ignore a pulling dog. [/quote] This is a pet (heh) hate of mine. People with small dogs letting them get away with murder and rude behaviour just because they can't pull / knock them over etc.
Re: lead walking yes milly my lab got bitten by a small dog whose owner said oh well he is only little!
Re: lead walking Things are going much better, I upped the treats, she hasn't been off lead unless we have driven her there. She knows she has to be by my side or we don't move although she still does pull forwards a few times still when I stop she gets herself back into position. We had some snow yesterday and all she wants to do is eat it so had to abandon a walk but will start again tomorrow I'm feeling much better about it and am very proud of her.
