Are you relevant to your dog? (Photo: a person holding a retractable leash with the dog wayyyyyy out in front of them in a forest)
Does your dog pull on the leash?
It isn’t very much fun to have your arm pulled out of its socket on a daily basis, or to break a hip on the ice (just ask my client who broke her hip last winter!)
Does your dog spend most of her time on the walk:
-zigzagging
-peeing on things
-hunting for squirrels/bunnies/birds/other dogs/people
-lunging at people and other dogs
-chasing cars/cats/wildlife
-looking at everything but you
-pulling your arm out of its socket
-barking at…everything?
One of the reasons your dog is doing this is because you are not relevant. Sure, you’re attached to the other end of the leash, but you’re following behind her. She’s in control of where she’s going.
Is your dog calling the shots and reacting to everything? (Photo: brown dog wearing a flat collar lunging at the end of his leash)
Because she’s in the front, she’s also in control of making all the decisions and dogs make pretty terrible decisions (and then yank us along with them, hurting our backs, shoulders, wrists, etc.)
Here are some tips to get your walks back on track:
The walk begins inside your home. If your dog doesn’t listen to you inside your home when you ask him to do things (sit, go to his bed, drop it, etc,) then he will not listen to you on the leash outside your home.
How to improve your relationship inside your home:
-follow through - don’t let your dog blow off commands
-placework - teach your dog to go to his cot and relax until you release him (this prevents counter surfing, stealing the kid’s socks, and barking out the window)
-wait until your dog is calm and gives you natural eye contact before leaving home
Wait for calmness and natural eye contact before rewarding your dog with a walk (Photo: a Dachshund looking up at his owner while on leash)
2. Build trust first. Most people adopt a rescue dog or young puppy and immediately want to go on long walks with their new companion at a perfect heel. If you’ve adopted a dog or puppy who has never worn a collar or leash before, it’s way more important to teach them to trust you and to follow you first, before forcing them on a 5 Km walk and experiencing what many of my clients have experienced (before working with me):
-the dog stops halfway through the walk and won’t move
-the puppy won’t leave the property at all, so the humans force them or pick them up
-their dog spends the whole walk lunging at dogs, people, and squirrels
-their dog pulls toward every single smell, making the walk no fun for the humans
How to build trust:
-slow down
-teach your dog to be part of the process (encourage them to move into their gear, don’t just lasso them into collars and shove them into jackets)
-check out my videos on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook for help with this
Walking your dog should feel like joy, peace, and calmness (Photo: Author, Alyssa Foulkes and her Rottweiler who is in an off-leash heel position in the forest)
3. Quality over Quantity. It doesn’t matter how far you walk. Leashing up properly, going through thresholds properly, and even walking down your steps properly matters more than how many kilometres you go. You may need to go back and forth on your street while you get the hang of heeling with your dog, and that’s still going to burn physical and mental energy.
How to improve the quality without worrying about the quantity:
-your neighbours aren’t watching you - you can walk back and forth a few times in front of your house practicing your heel (P.S. If they ARE watching you, they are probably hoping to get some tips that will help them with their own dog.)
-focus on calmness before the walk and how you move through thresholds just as much as you focus on the heeling when you’re outside
Keep doing your best and you’ll see results.
Keep showing up every day and you’ll see improvements (Photo: a woman walking beside an Australian Shepherd at sunset)
Check out our IGTV videos to learn more about:
-fulfilling your dog’s physical and mental needs on walks
-heeling/loose leash walking
-one of the best places to practice loose leash walking
Our Instagram handle is: @GoBeyondDogTraining
The video series is called: Structured Walks
Check out our videos for more tips (Photo: woman on her laptop sitting beside a napping Golden Retriever)
We all need to learn, practice, master, and then repeat when it comes to working with dogs. Hands up if you know whose mantra that is: learn, practice, master, repeat. It resonates with me so much. We humans need to remember that last word. We are never finished learning. It is a continuous loop. You know this if you’ve owned dogs your whole life, but have recently adopted a dog who is totally unlike any dog you’ve ever trained and lived with. There’s new skills to be learned, practiced, mastered, and then repeated.
Happy learning, Dog Leaders!
Thanks for reading!
Alyssa
Photos by: Marek Szturc @marxgall (a person holding a retractable leash with the dog wayyyyyy out in front of them in a forest,) Upsplash image (brown dog wearing a flat collar lunging at the end of his leash,) Upsplash Image (a Dachshund looking up at his owner while on leash,) Parry Bast (Author, Alyssa Foulkes and her Rottweiler who is in an off-leash heel position in the forest) Patrick Schätz
@wndrlst_pctrs (a woman walking beside an Australian Shepherd at sunset,) BRUNO EMMANUELLE
@brunocervera (woman on her laptop sitting beside a napping Golden Retriever)