loose leash walking

[Bostie]

I have a very short dog (half poodle half yorkie). We do agility so she had to learn a "by me" command for directional purposes. I decided to use it all the time and it's great. I used targeting training with a long wooden spoon and aerosol cheese. It'd pretty self-explanatory and I think someone else has described target training already.

She now has a great "by me" response and I can even walk her without a leash!

Also, her eye contact while walking has improved tremendously. 80% of the time when I look down at her she is looking right back at me almost asking "What's next?!"

When I first started training this, I found that because she is so small, whenever she started to move ahead of me and I didn't want to give a leash correction, I could slightly move my foot in front of her every step and she would quickly sna and look at me.

Hope this helps!!

[jiml]

When prongs/headcollars are used properly, they can be great training tools. However, like harnesses, they are just bandaid fixes as well, the and the dog should eventually be weaned onto a regular flat collar. >>>>

to add to this any training device is dog dependent. Ex. one dog may respond very well to a prong or a head harness, another may pull regardless and still another roll around like your torturing it. Remember to read the feedback from your dog. And yes I have seen the stubborn dogs that could care less about standing still when they pull, but for most dogs it works well.

[doggiedad]

stop depending on a device. find a trainer. work with
your dog everyday, several times a day.

Would you believe Lynn is two and still pulls on walks. i have been using no pull harnesses and head haltis to walk her. I have just been putting a band aid on the situation.

For a while last year i did the "be a tree" method. she pulls, i stop. so pull=stop.
it worked well at first and then she got more stubborn, and i felt it was easier just to put a no pull harness on her.

does anyone have any links?

what would you use as a tool? flat collar, chain, prong....?

[cprcheetah]

Loose Leash walking is the ONE thing that Shellie does really well. I used the Be a Tree and the Turn and walk the other direction when she was pulling. Sometimes she needs a little reminding but she is AWESOME at loose leash walking. She is clicker trained and that helped a lot too. I can easily take the garbage up to the dumpster and have Shellie on leash and not worry about her pulling me to timbucktoo. She does get a little excited if she sees people or other dogs but I use the command "easy" or "leave it" to help with those situations.

[monkeys23]

Don't even consider a chain or prong because those are just bandaids as well, but they cause pain to your dog.

They aren't band aids if they are used properly. Chains are extremely hard to use properly so I'd forget that idea, but if you can find an experienced trainer to show you how to use the prong collar properly it would be a great way to communicate what you want Lynn to do. You could also use a clicker in conjunction to mark the yay moments. Simple vocal praise or a treat works too. Focus exercises will also really help her pay attention to you instead of just blasting about doing whatever she wants.

Handy article: How to fit a Prong Collar