Are you rewarding this inside your home? (Photo: two dogs wrestling on the grass,)
Your relationship with your dog begins inside your home. A dog who does not listen to your direction inside your home will not listen to your direction outside your home. It really is that simple.
If your dog lunges, growls at, tries to nip, and/or barks at your houseguests, how could we be surprised when they behave this way on walks as well? It’s all connected to your relationship.
Ask yourself how often you reward your dog for being excited inside your home each day?
Do you encourage the zoomies (even when your dog flies across the couch overtop of your children’s legs and steps on your cats - ouch!)?
Do you reward your dog with praise and affection when she’s invading your personal space, whining, leaning on you, or nudging your hand (demanding affection)?
Do you toss toys for her when she’s barking at you?
Are you rewarding your dog for barking at you during fetch? (Photo: dog barking in the water)
Do you talk in a baby voice and pet her when she greets you with excitement when you come home?
Do you feed her when she’s excited?
Now, ask yourself: How many times a day do I reward her for being calm and relaxed inside the home?
For many people, that number is much lower than the excitement number. Oftentimes we don’t ever reward our dog for calmness at all. You don’t know to do it until you know — and now you know.
If all you practice is excitement, your dog doesn’t get a chance to practice being calm. If he never practices calmness inside your home, how can you expect him to practice it on the walk?
The walk begins inside your home. If you leash up a hyper dog and he pulls you outside, you have already signed the contract of being his follower. Following an excited dog and pulling back on the leash leads to all sorts of bad behaviours and is also damaging to your dog’s trachea.
Flat collars and even some harnesses can damage your dog’s trachea if the dog is allowed to constantly pull (Photo: large brown dog lunging on the leash wearing a flat collar)
Many people believe that the harness will change this relationship and make the walk better. I have seen harnesses:
-ride up and put pressure on the trachea causing all of the same trachea damage as a flat collar
-putting pressure on puppies’ necks and causing them to vomit
-ruin the gait of the dog (think shoulder injuries from constantly walking in this “pull sideways away from my human” way that you’ve seen or are living with)
Harnesses were designed for pulling. (Photo: sled dogs pulling a sled on the snow)
Often when we walk our dog on a harness we are not relevant. Meaning, if we dropped the leash, our dog would not care. They would just toddle off toward whatever distraction they were originally pulling you toward without even glancing back at you. This is a relationship problem. No matter what tool you walk your dog on, you should be relevant on the walk.
All dogs have opposition reflex and will pull away from whatever is trying to hold them back (Photo: pug wearing a harness pulling away from its human handler)
I’ve helped lots of owners who have hit a plateau with their reactive dog to overcome leash reactivity. Almost all of them have come to me with a harness and a habit of using a lot of high-value treats, neither of which were helping them to reach their walking goals.
If you’re struggling with leash reactivity and you’ve been working on this for months and the issue isn’t resolved — schedule a free call with us and find out if we’re the right fit. We love helping owners learn how to enjoy calm walks with their dogs.
Feeling overwhelmed? Wondering where to begin?
-Placework in the home: start small and build up to longer durations, distances, and distractions
Placework is all about providing your dog with a job (calmness) so that they can retire from window barking and counter surfing (Photo: Retriever laying calmly on a dog bed,)
-Positive mindset: Yoga, meditation, positive self-speak. Breathe and believe. You can do this. Calmer you — calmer dog.
-Heeling (teaching your dog to walk beside or even slightly behind you on walks on a nice loose leash): begin teaching this inside your home
-Thresholds: calm dogs are allowed to go through doorways (front door, back door, stairs, car door, crate door, elevator door, etc.) Excited dogs need to wait until they are calm before being given the reward (the walk is the reward.)
It’s never too late to change your relationship with your dog. He’s waiting patiently for you to take the leadership role. He doesn’t want it anyway.
Have a wonderful weekend, Dog Leaders!
Alyssa
Photos by: David Taffet @invisibleman_photography (two dogs wrestling on the grass,) Angelo CARNIATO
@angelocarniato (dog barking in the water,) Upsplash Image (large brown dog lunging on the leash wearing a flat collar,) Sandra Seitamaa
@seitamaaphotography (sled dogs pulling a sled on the snow,) yang miao
@yangmiao (pug wearing a harness pulling away from its human handler,) Upsplash Image (Retriever laying calmly on a dog bed,)
Posted November 2021. Updated March 24, 2022.