My two have a pretty good walk to heel, which I clicker trained from a young age. It's less easy when I have them both on lead together, and Willow tends to walk ahead, Shadow behind. This doesn't bother me per se, but it does mean Willow stays less "connected" to me and is more likely to pull to catch a smell. Over time, I've faded the treats used when clicker training (and have dropped the click completely), but was still giving the odd treat, maybe one every minute or so. After our conversations on gait changes, I really started to pay attention to how they were walking. It's not something I've paid a lot of attention to previously, since I'm inexperienced and they luckily have no known joint issues, but as soon as I concentrated on it, I could see how they were walking always with a slight tilt of the head towards me, clearly anticipating my hand going towards my treat bag and, when it did, their head would look back to my hand, twisting their bodies, until the treat was delivered. When walking them together, so Willow is farther ahead, this is event more pronounced for her. I hope to have many happy years with my dogs, and over time, I'm sure that could cause joint problems, so I decided to nip it in the bud. I took on board the comments from those people who don't use treats and only use the stop-and-start method (which I do as well, I just treat when they are walking nicely), and gave it a go. Using the cue to myself of keeping my hand by my hip and, as soon as it leaves my side, stop. Well, it's revolutionary. I've been doing this for just two days and already the improvements have been massive. Not only in their gaits, but also in how they are walking together on-lead. They are far more level, with Willow walking closer to me. I am still giving the occasional treat, but when I do, I stop and wait for the sit, so there is no impact to how they're walking - and also reinforces that stop-means-sit. I'm very happy at the progress and we all seem to be a lot more relaxed, too. Good times!
That's great! Twiglet has to walk mostly treat free and ahead of me without pulling. She has to choose to stop at kerbs and turn her head towards me, touching my leg - so that's when she gets her treats. Any pulling means the walk stops until her mind is back in the right space. She's getting there but it'll be a couple of months before she's reliable, I think.
It is posts like this that make me realise just how badly I mismanaged Pongo's early months! We hardly ever use a lead for him (we're in the middle of nowhere) so we never really taught him about lead walking, and so he has absolutely no concept of what a lead is for. He is now so strong that "stop and start" isn't an option; for me it would be "stop and get dragged" and he wouldn't even notice the minor inconvenience of my body trailing along behind him in the mud . I doubt that even treats would be an effective answer, because when he pulls it is because there is something MUCH more interesting even than food to investigate or play with. Yesterday I had to manage him for 200 yards along the side of a busy road, with other dogs in view, at the start of a long walk which he was wildly excited about. It wasn't a good five minutes, and it brought it home to me (quite depressingly) that I've completely failed him here. .
Thank you @snowbunny for your post. I rarely walk my two together on the lead, just from the car to the field, as no.1 Lab lost out on training when he was out of action for a few months when a puppy, I was too scared to try any heel walking in case he damaged his elbow again. Consequently, he became a very strong dog when he lunged, no 2 Lab was brought up correctly! I will try the start and stop technique, but will this help with sudden lunging!
I'll give this a go too....I over treat,I'm a nightmare for it! I'm too soft as I think he's walking super lovely so he deserves a treat! I'm still scarred by the pulling horrors I think! Recently I've gone back to really rewarding him for staying close and checking in with me when he is off lead on our morning walks...preparation for if I do get him back to the UK in the Summer and we will be walking in new places with things he's never seen before...this has had an effect on our lead walks...he is very interested in my hand movements and is probably twisting more than he should be ....
If you use a clicker when treating and you're worried about the twisting you could start only clicking when he's looking ahead.
I click when Charlie's head is forward when training a 'walk by my side'. On a loose lead, which was trained without treats, he glances up and round time to time but I haven't got the constant looking up at me thing.
I think the best thing you can do with Pongo - since you rarely have to use a lead anyway - is just concentrate on getting an off lead heel. You can do this on your off lead walks. Just do a few minutes each morning. Then, slip a (limited) slip lead over his head. You don't need to worry about loose lead etc. all you need is a few minutes of heel from him.
Yes, it works with lunging just the same - only, because a strong dog can stop you stopping your feet by lunging they can be rewarded for the lunge. The trick is to stay far enough away from whatever it is they lunge to at first. With Charlie these were very easily identified - other dogs, and anything vertical where another dog had cocked his leg. It did involve me walking down the middle of the road at times!
Thanks Julie, that's encouraging. We have been working on off-lead heel, and he is doing quite well (matching my speed, and staying focused even in very distracting environment, eg walking across the agility arena while other dogs are there). But it is all treat-based at present - he's getting a treat every twenty steps or so. And he gets bored of it after a bit and I can see his mind wandering; I tend to stop then so that we end on success rather than failure, so the "at heel" sessions are at the moment never more than 100 yards. Idiot question coming up: what should I be looking for if buying a good slip lead?
What is he lunging at, Stacia? Coco lunges at dogs and cats (and shadows he THINKS are cats). Without being able to set up scenarios, it's difficult. I am working on the dog thing at the moment, sitting on a bench and C&T for looking at dogs calmly.
@Rosie 100 yards is quite good! Don't be so hard on him! On Wimbledon Common, I don't ask for more than about 30 yards at a time. I might ask for 10 of those through a walk, and try for a couple of 35 or 40 yards thrown in but Charlie would struggle to maintain a position for 100 yards with sniffs and smells all around (unless we are on the training field or somewhere that he is focused on work). One thing that has helped Charlie is the reward for heel is more exciting than food, so heel comes before other things he loves - a ball, mainly. This doesn't help anywhere I can't throw a ball but it helps. The most popular limited slip leads are from Tuff Stuff, just everyone tends to use these: http://www.tuffstuff-ltd.co.uk/p/23/limited-slip-lead. I've tended to go back to my rope limited slip lead, which I just find a bit nicer (and a bit longer, which I like) and also it's easier to train a dog to stick his head through, I think because it's quicker to adjust the loop. For a bit of interest, I'll do my heeling exercises on a hands free lead. I have two of these - one is a German hunting lead, and the other is a long biothane lead that clips to his collar. I like the hunting lead better because it acts as a cue for him. You absolutely can't use a hunting lead if there is any danger of your dog lunging though, it would really hurt you unless you were wearing a thick coat!
It's posts like yours that makes me feel so UNalone! While walking on a loose lead is the ideal, we've found that a front-fastening harness is a stress-free way to walk Snowie on a lead when we know he will be highly excited and want to drag us along - it really works a charm.
I think I'm lucky because my two have never been real pullers. I've never been in that situation of them trying to drag me down to road that you see with some dogs. Maybe because I started young. It's not that they never pull, of course, just that they never really get fully behind the pull for a prolonged effort. Pulling tends to be either for something that I can predict - someone they know and like is approaching; it's their first walk and they need the loo etc - or because there's a smell they suddenly catch that just has to be sniffed. I've C&Ted for looking ahead (and then changed to using a "good" verbal marker because I felt the clicker wasn't appropriate anymore), but I still find they're a little off-balance, as if watching me from the corner of their eye for the forthcoming treat. Maybe I wasn't being precise enough. Still, the not treating at all, and letting the walk be the reward seems to be working far better for me. I wonder if the treat was diluting the other reward of forward motion. When walking off lead, I ensure that they have really good treats - this generally means a chase. I'll throw a ball or cone as a jackpot, and otherwise throw a treat to chase or hunt for. When I'm walking the two of them together now, I've started clipping Shadow's double-ended lead around my waist, since he walks far nicer than his sister and it allows me to concentrate on my hand-at-hip for Willow. He has pulled a couple of times like this, but I can tell you that I feel a lot stronger when he does. Again, he's not a massive puller (and he's about half the size of Pongo!), but it might be worth a try with him?
I think that, in some ways, @Rosie is in an ideal situation. She doesn't really have to put a lead on Pongo. The best thing to do with a big strong dog that pulls on lead, is not put him on a lead! The entire problem of pulling on a lead is caused by the fact we put leads on our dogs before we've trained them to walk alongside us. In Pongo's case, he doesn't have to be on a lead - brilliant! The perfect situation. So don't put him on one until his off lead heel is near perfect, then just gently start slipping a lead over his head, which is just for emergencies, because what @Rosie is relying on is her training. I would adore to be in that situation, it's perfect.
This is how Benson has been trained ..to look straight ahead...click..then treat. This behaviour was started off lead first with the treat delivered on the ground. Photo from yesterdays gundog training..Benson..and the gorgeous Ralph. We spend ages on loose lead walking!
Other dogs on lead when he is on the lead. When he was younger and I only had him, I used to throw myself to the ground so that he had to drag me as well!!!! I have since managed him much better, it is when I have the two of them. Thanks @JulieT I note to keep my distance but it is usually when we meet another dog coming up the lane and there is no distance I can go to!! I took them both on the lead this morning over the fields, had to keep them on lead as farmer about and even though I was on a footpath in a rape field, I am always horribly law abiding! No distractions, so they were very good and heeled well with no pulling all the time.
@Rosie i know exactly how you feel - you know I didn't train loose lead walking properly and have the same problem that she would pull me off my feet......I use the head collar now in new places as I can't risk her hurting me. It is the one thing that stops her from pulling. I hate using it, but it's my own fault! I has persevered and can now go from my house to the local shops (10 mins) with about 90% loose lead and from the car to PAH shop, but that has taken months and months and months!
Just going back to the subject of getting a dog that has been trained not to pull to walk straight - or doing this without treats. I've trained "do whatever you like but don't pull" without using treats. This is Charlie's everyday, longer distance, walk style - on a 2m lead doing whatever he wants. You can see in this video, as my fingers (I didn't realise I held the lead with 2 fingers, but I do!) move forwards, Charlie takes an action not to pull any harder. He will glance at me time to time but is mostly just doing his own thing. Walk by my side (in a rough heel) was trained with treats but clicking for looking forwards. loose lead by julieandcharlie julieandcharlie, on Flickr
