Is this possible? How to go about it? When I walk mine on-lead by the road, I keep them on a short lead. I have a constant feeling that, if I were to let the leash go long, they would step out into the road. This (clearly) terrifies me. I've taught them to sit when I stop at a crossing, uncued, but this is very different to having any understanding of the dangers of the road. Shadow used to get spooked at the road noises, especially large vehicles, but has moved on from that; however, I still think that if they got startled by anything strange (air brakes etc), they would be likely to run towards the road rather than away from it, because the pavements are pretty narrow and the road looks like a good escape route. So, I'm obviously very, very careful on the roads, especially when they're busy, but is there anything I can do to make the pups more aware of the dangers, without scaring them? I would just like them to have some street smarts! I've only known older family rescue dogs before, and I've never felt the complete ambivalence to traffic that I get from my two. So, maybe it's just an age thing? But, having had a friend's dog run over in the last few months, and reading about Simba's friend, I'm more anxious about it than ever. Not that I plan to have mine off-lead near traffic ever, but if something happened....?
Boogie might know about this, as Guide Dogs must be taught not to step into the road if a car is coming (as far as I know....). However I would never trust any dog of mine not to stray into the road.
Yes, Mags might know... I guess it's trained with a lot of set ups involving cars.... Many dogs are off lead around roads in London - and since there are so many roads, one is really never far away....it is rate but not all that rare to see a dog off lead on a pavement next to a busy road (not Charlie though). Our family dogs when I was a kid would be off lead at the side of a road....it's just what everyone did. It seems that the dogs who do this have not been taught about the dangers of the road, but have been taught to stay at heel or on the path. Charlie is very good at staying on the path I am walking on (there are loads of paths on the Common where I have reason to want him to stay on the path - areas where I want to see exactly what he is sniffing, by the golf course and so on. Just a matter off asking him to change direction if he stepped off the path, and he got it.
We have a Flat Coat and a Staffie in our village that walk off lead and it's just down to training and their constant attention on the owner. Hattie mostly automatically sits at all road sides and when we walk on country roads when vehicles approaches from either direction she sits and looks at me, I trained this because I think it is very important as I don't want any sudden movements into the road when tractors etc. are going around us on narrow roads. Charlie is getting much better at this behaviour too, also it looks good and people think you have really well trained dogs x
Oh, don't get me wrong, mine walk really well on a loose lead pretty much all the time. But there are sections where the pavement is very narrow (for example, where they are renovating the bus stop), and they have no hesitation in popping off the kerb into the road. The road is super quiet at the moment, and so they're not seeing a lot of traffic, although they did in the winter time. I would never, ever walk them off-lead by a road, even a few years in the future if they're ever completely bullet-proof and trained within an inch of their lives, because you just don't know what could happen. So I suppose I'm worrying about nothing, inasmuch as it should never be a problem. I just wish they understood the potential danger.
It's very unusual to see a French dog on a lead in town, Juno has always walked loose lead in town and I had sessions with my trainer in town trying to introduce her to as many aspects of town life we could, tractors, lorries with air-brakes, ambulance sirens. part of that training was also focussed on narrow footpaths. The French method is while walking with loose lead, ensuring there is no traffic coming, lean into the dog with your leg and dog has to move over and if they go to step of the path tell them No and to walk on the path. Sounds a bit strange, probably not explained very well!, but worked very quickly for Juno. Where the path is narrow she normally drops behind me with no fuss. round the country lanes she is on a long lead but moves onto the verge when a tractor or car is approaching and now goes in to a sit, without any request from me, to watch it go by
