# Teaching loose leash



## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

It's my opinion, based on my experience with Penny, that using a flexi-lead or other LONG leash contributes to pulling. The dogs get used to being that far from the handler, for one thing. Then there's the aspect that they can 'take off' whenever they want. I feel that the farther away the young, untrained dog is the harder it is to correct and teach correct behavior.

We plan to use a short leash with Mr. Darcy...no more than 5 feet. He will get plenty of off leash play time. I want to start with day one...okay, day two lol...teaching/accepting only one way to be on a leash. 

Later, when loose leash walking is confirmed, I think we can introduce the flexi lead if we wanted to.

Thoughts? Ideas?


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## cgriffin (Nov 30, 2011)

Sounds good to me. 
I did not introduce the flexi lead till the dogs were adults. 
I have not used a flexi lead in years though. Our dogs walk with me on the property without leash, they have good recall, would not do it otherwise. 
When going places with the dogs, I use the regular short leashes. 
Once we have our new pup, we will also use a regular leash, not the flexi lead. Of course, pup will be leashed on our walks.


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## laprincessa (Mar 24, 2008)

I wish I'd never seen a flexi-lead, I think they teach the dog that there should be constant pressure - they have to pull to move, basically. 
And I feel the same about halters and harnesses - everything seemed to be a miracle cure for pulling for awhile, until Max got used to it, and then it was back to square one.

Your plan sounds great, and if there's ever another puppy in my life, it's what I will do, as well.


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## Artnlibsmom (May 8, 2013)

So what is the best way to teach loose leash? Justice will be 6 months tomorrow and I still spend most walks being pulled. I had planned to go to class with a trainer, but finances right now are going to Artie's chemo so that is one thing that got cut along with agility thoughts. I'm hopeful that eventually we can work on therapy dog but I sure don't want to wait on good basic manners.


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## golden_732 (Aug 26, 2013)

There is a dog park locally, that is more like 12 acres of trails. Although it is off leash, I am not 100% okay with it in the beginnings of the trails. With my last golden, I would use the flexi in the beginning, to give him the freedom to sniff and explore. His recall was spot on and he would be at my side if the flexi reached its maximum before sniffing off again.


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## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

I'm not sure how to teach this from the beginning. I think maybe in the house? Sitting on the floor? I want to teach him to associate the leash with being by my side. I thought I'd clip on my 2foot training leash and keep him by me. Details will come when I see his reaction....probably chewing on the leather lead and then falling asleep. lol


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## eleni (Oct 10, 2013)

I don't like flexi leads either and never use them. I taught all my dogs to walk at my side, ( I am not really crazy about it, I don't expect them to be at my heel, just to walk normally at my side without pulling) just by stopping dead whenever they started pulling on the leash. I would resume walking once they were at my side and stop again as soon as they pulled. They all understood eventually that in order to continue our walk, they had to stay by my side.


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## Jennifer1 (Mar 31, 2012)

I'm not a fan of flexi leads. To me they can be down right dangerous to you and your dog.
Look up flexi leash injury using the image function. Beware, there are some pretty graphic pictures.
The lead can act as a pretty sharp wire if someone goes to grab it or it gets wrapped around a bystanders leg.


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## solinvictus (Oct 23, 2008)

polite walking part 1





 polite walking part 2





 polite walking part 3

If the dog is walking toward you they cannot practice pulling ahead of you. (it helps change the visual picture for the dog of the bad habit of being ahead of you and pulling)
For some reason dogs really feel rewarded for oppositional reflex. So pulling ahead and feeling that opposition on the leash is self rewarding. You want to prevent it from happening.

When starting out we suggest that the leash be in the right hand, put you hand in your pocket. Reinforcement in your left hand. You do not need to use a clicker you can use a word as the bridge/indicator instead.

First you are building reinforcement in front of you then you are building reinforcement for walking toward you. 

The video dosent break it down far enough. I would practice the pivot and reward. Then when you are both comfortable in that position I would do a pivot and one step. Over and Over before practicing more steps making those steps variable.

I believe dogs think in pictures. By building up all that reinforcement with the j in the leash then coming toward you then reinforcement along the seam of your pants after the pivot and then lots of reinforcement for that one step you are building good habits that being beside you is an awesome place to be.


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## ktkins7 (Jul 20, 2013)

I'm teaching Ella with her six foot leash and mostly work on it in the driveway and yard because of the set up of my house. I'll walk and make sure that she does not go in front of me more than a few steps. When she does I have her stop and then we go the opposite direction. I also try to keep her to keep her attention more on me, with the "look at me" command, and also making her sit to make sure she is paying attention to me. If she is too hyped up I go back to carrying the squeaky toy to get her attention that I originally used to get her attention with it. Usually don't have to resort to that though.

I do use a flexi lead when we walk around the neighborhood and when we go hiking. The one I got is loose where there is hardly any tension on it at all. Whenever Ella gets the end of the lead she stops and looks at me and will either wait until I'm right next to her or she will come back to me. At first I worried this would interfere with teaching her the loose leash walking but she actually does seem to understand the difference between the regular leash and the flexi lead. Once I can trust her with recall then I'll probably loose the flexi for the most part.


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## laprincessa (Mar 24, 2008)

What's working for us is me having a pocket full of treats, when Max starts to pull, I make the kissee noise and he stops, looks at me, and I pop a treat in his mouth. It's been slow going - I have six years of him pulling on me to work through - but it's working. Today we did an extra 1/2 mile and he was great. I let him roam ahead of me, as long as he's not yanking on me, I'm okay with that. Mostly he stays beside me, and that's when I do the pez dispenser imitation with treats. It's been a long road for us, and I wish I had done this part earlier.


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

solinvictus said:


> First you are building reinforcement in front of you then you are building reinforcement for walking toward you.


I think your post is absolutely terrific. We often teach beginning leash behaviors by having the dog walk toward you as you walk backwards so you can build attention and connection with a high rate of reinforcement. Then, you get good at the pivot and rewarding the dog in position (generally takes people a few tries to get the hang of that). If you're working on a precision heel, you can do it that way, but most of us just want polite leash walkers, so your precision isn't as important as rewarding the dog for connecting with you and being in a good spot.

The walking backwards thing also gives you a strong habit for interrupting your dog and changing direction without having him slam into the end of the leash. I had a lightbulb moment when I was board-and-training a dog who was a really confirmed puller who would run to the end of the leash and basically strangle himself while fixating on a squirrel, a person, a dog, or even things like leaves. If you turned into a tree, even if you were really careful not to let him jerk himself at the end of the leash, he just kept strangling himself by pulling with full force.

I took him to group classes at the center, and the experienced trainer there was able to get him prancing pretty within a few minutes. It was an utterly shocking transformation. What she did was work on walking backwards and holding his attention, so when he decided to run out to the end of the leash, she'd catch him right _before_ he fixated and moved, and she'd back up and change direction. Without the chance to get going, he kept getting distracted by _her_ instead of other dogs, so she had a chance to reward him repeatedly for staying with her.

Then it was a matter of pivoting and rewarding him for being near her, and changing direction preemptively before he could break the connection and run to the end of the leash. 

I learned how to do that and how to better read him, and it took a week or two of practice before he was really not lunging anymore, and even when he occasionally did, you could get him back almost instantly by saying "let's go" and changing direction a little.

Total lightbulb moment for me, and now the backwards/pivot/reward in position thing is currently my favorite way to teach loose leash to a newbie dog. You can even do it with teeny puppies, which is super fun.

Biggest problem people have in class with this is that they have trouble coordinating everything, so they either can't reward the dog in a timely fashion when he does pay attention and walk in the good zone, or they reward across their body with the hand opposite the dog, and he learns to come in front of them to anticipate it, even if you don't actually give him the treat until your hand is all the way across your hip. You end up with the dog underfoot a lot, since you're not controlling him with the leash at all.

It's also hard for people to remember to reward and walk at the same time. Takes 'em a few tries to walk backwards at first and to keep walking while rewarding the dog repeatedly with a few tiny pieces when he gives attention. And it's also hard to keep walking when you deliver treats at your hip.

Another issue is people, once they coordinate themselves, tend to lure the dog by putting the treat in front of his face, down at their side. A little of that isn't a big deal, but you want the dog to learn to follow _you_ and get rewarded frequently (at first) for it, not follow a treat in front of his nose.


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## solinvictus (Oct 23, 2008)

"Biggest problem people have in class with this is that they have trouble coordinating everything, so they either can't reward the dog in a timely fashion when he does pay attention and walk in the good zone, or they reward across their body with the hand opposite the dog"

We do suggest people work on their mechanics of bringing the piece of food down to their finger and thumb without the dog in the picture at all. Practice makes perfect. 
We have the owners put their right hand and leash in their pocket so they aren't fiddling with the leash or using it for control. They cannot reward across their body if the food (in the beginning is in their left hand) 
Again in the beginning it is really important to reward along the seam of the pants in heel position. If the people are transfering food they usually bring their left hand forward and it tends to bring the dog out of position and they end up rewarding in the when the dog is forward. I want to build up the picture of all reinforcement comes right down that seam. Since I am not actually looking for a formal heel eventually the dog may walk a little ahead or behind but knows that all reinforcement comes at that seam and usually tries to be there in hopes of a reward.  Position of reinforcement really is important.

After a short period of time we don't actually have the food in hand down at their face level (luring) we move it up and cup our hand toward the front. We start to put the variable into the reinforcement. one step/ three steps, 8 steps, 2 steps. Once I can get this in any habitat then I will put the food into my right hand and transfer food for each reward. Being very careful to make sure that still all reinforcement comes from the left hand down that seam.

It may take a little extra thought and practice in the beginning but I feel it is worth it. 

Walking backwards sets the stage.
practicing that one beginning step after the pivot over and over (lots of reinforcement) builds on the position and prevents the dog from practicing moving to the end of the leash. 
If the dog does go to the end of the leash I would use my release word and start from the beginning. I am not going to wait for the dog to come back on his own or actually call him back into position as I feel that sets up a chain that I don't want. 

Eventually I may need a little maintenance training as a reminder here or there with a dog but after they really have a solid polite walk/loose leash walk if they do move forward and come back I will tell them they are good (not reward at that moment) take a step or two in position and then use my indicator word (yes) and reward in position.


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## Brave (Oct 26, 2012)

Penny's mom this is such a great thread! Drs. Foster and Smith's FB page just posed the question of how we feel about Flexi-leads, too!!! 

I hate them!! I've been hurt by them. We've been accosted by dogs on them. YUCK! 

It's been my experience (Bear has ALWAYS had a flat lead, normally 6 ft long) that the farther Bear is away from me on a 6 ft leash, the less he pays attention and the more he is in his own world. We're working on that. At least he's checking in now. Which I reward tirelessly for. He checks in more often when OFF leash, but we abide by the leash laws which say no dog can be on a leash longer than 10 ft (shush don't let them know about my 30 footer!)

Bear took to the leash like a fish to water, so we didn't have any problems convincing him to walk on leash. However, after training loose leash walking (before he started pulling) for about 3-4 months, one day he flipped a switch and decided that "hey. I'm strong enough to take you where I want to go! SQUIRREL!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And that's when the pulling began. Bear is now collar smart (which we still *NEED* to correct, but at this point in our lives, getting him out and about for rehab is more important than training loose leash walking). He wears his gentle leader and is 95% perfect on lead. He gets better every day!! 

Anyways, the way we original taught (and still try to reinforce on our walks now) is click-n-treat when the dog's head is at our thigh/hand. I will hold treats in my hand and dispense them rapid fire for about 5 steps. Turn around and repeat. Bear will stick to my side like glue! UNTIL something more important catches his eye(i.e. a car, a human, an animal, a leaf, a fence, a flower.... the list goes ON AND ON AND ON) than the treat won't do any good and I have to refocus him on me. We've been retraining "watch me" or "look at me" again and he's actually getting alot better at it. Anyways, if he pulls, I stop and when he reaches the end of the leash (which normally he is almost there anyways), he realizes he can't move forward and he looks back at me. When he realizes I'm not moving he comes back to my side and I click-n-treat for coming back. I take a step and see if he stays at my side.Yes? click-n-treat. No? Stop, rinse and repeat. If he refuses to pay attention to me. I'll make our "you who" noise and tell him i'm changing directions. I then change directions. His focus is 100% on me now. So i keep changing directions and clicking and treating every time he comes with me. 

If we're on a walk and he's constantly pulling, I will do a leash pop, but with the gentle leader on, it's literally a flick of my index finger. I will follow that up with "easy," "back," or "here". That way he is corrected for his unwanted behavior and then redirected to what I want him to do.


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## laprincessa (Mar 24, 2008)

You guys are great! I'm afraid Max and I may be too old to do the backwards thing, but I'm getting a lot of good tips from this thread. Thank you!


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## ellisda1 (Jul 24, 2013)

I'm actually of the mind that, for a young puppy, both the flexi lead and a normal 6' lead have their uses. My Luna just turned 13 weeks and has been walking regularly for reasonable distances for several weeks. When we're recreating, she's on the flexi so that she can do puppy exploration - chasing leaves, grabbing sticks, burrowing into greenery, etc. We do short "heel" position walks with the regular leash at home so she knows (sort of) where she needs to be when I want her there. Now, on our recreational "flexi" walks, Luna can explore a bit, and she almost never goes too far ahead or too far behind to pull the leash, and responds well to a "let's go" or "leave it" when she lags, and "wait" if she gets too far ahead. I can ask her to heel or to watch me for a few meters if I want to practice short lead close to me work that we'll get into more seriously when she's a bit older. Our walks are not nearly as frustrating, to both of us, as they were when I tried the 6' leash. When she's older, and less distractable, I don't expect any issues (other than Excessive Greeting Disorder) if I need to use the 6' leash.

... but we're both really novices at this stuff....


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## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

Wow...that is amazing. PLUS, I will be able to dance afterwards!! lol

Love this method and so happy to have something I can work on right away, in the house as well as outside!


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## Artnlibsmom (May 8, 2013)

Started tonight. How long should I work on step one before progressing? Several sessions? Justice did a great job. I couldn't find my clicker so went with "YES!" With every step.

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## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

I usually do things 6 times before moving on. That could be 2 sessions 3 days in a row. Or 3 short sessions in 2 days. Depending on his age and attention span. It's better to spend more time than to move on too quickly; before he's proofed himself.


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## Dallas Gold (Dec 22, 2007)

Elisabeth, Mr. Darcy may actually walk loose lead from the start- his half brother did. As you know we were limited in his outside activities before he was fully vaccinated (at our vet's instructions) due to being in a heavy parvo epidemic area so I just walked him around the house rewarding him/jackpotting him using a slip lead and a collar and lead. By the time we got outside he was walking right beside me, leash handle in his mouth. No need for treats at all, even though I keep them handy. I really dislike the flexi-leads for walking in public after seeing a number break when the dogs' lunged and also seeing several owners drop the handles after their dogs lunged at ours. With a puppy that may not have rock solid recall, it may be risky should the flexi- lead fail in some way.


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## BriGuy (Aug 31, 2010)

There are some great tips earlier. The only thing I like to suggest is to try using a leash attached to your waist. I made one myself almost for free with about a 3 foot rope for a leash. Since I am totally uncoordinated, this really made it easy for me to walk, click, treat, change direction, walk backwards, etc..., without worrying at all about the leash.  It is especially nice in winter too.


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## Dallas Gold (Dec 22, 2007)

BriGuy said:


> There are some great tips earlier. The only thing I like to suggest is to try using a leash attached to your waist. I made one myself almost for free with about a 3 foot rope for a leash. Since I am totally uncoordinated, this really made it easy for me to walk, click, treat, change direction, walk backwards, etc..., without worrying at all about the leash.  It is especially nice in winter too.


You can take a belt and just loop the leash handle to the belt- I used to walk my dogs like that for years.


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## solinvictus (Oct 23, 2008)

I always suggest training at least 2x a day. You can do more. For the very first step of just letting the dog get the feel of the j in the leash and reinforcing in front of you I would do it (just that for 2 days) so at least 4 times. I wouldn't do it more than a minute or so at a time. You want to leave them thinking hey this was great why did we stop.
Then I would start with the first step and move on to taking the steps backwards for the rest of the week. The science on dog training is it takes 500 good repetitions for the dog to really own a behavior. Then each step after that I would work on it 2 x a day for an entire week. 
I would actually start in the house or the yard where there are no distractions. Once you have gone through all the steps then I would change the habitat and take it out in areas with light distractions. Remember when you change that habitat to start back at the beginning but you should be able to advance at a faster rate moving through the steps. If at anytime your dog messes up more than 2 out of 10 times the pup somehow has gotten confused and to back up a step in the process and work that again for a short time.

I would not tie the leash around your waist unless that is how you will be walking your dog all the time. Otherwise you will not have the mechanics to work through this yourself and that will set up a very different picture for your dog when you actually try to take regular loose leash walks. 

When our dogs fail it is usually because of us. Our mechanical skills are not proficient. Our reinforcement schedule stays in a lure instead of advancing to a variable rate of reinforcement. Our timing is off and we reward the dog for something unintended. Our reinforcement is not positioned where we really want the dog to be. We don't spend enough time in the very basics. We move on to high distractions before the dog really has a grasp of what we want. 

Every handler gets the dog they train. So if you skip steps, reward in the wrong position, rush through the training you get what you have trained.
It is better to take the time to do it all right in the beginning instead of trying to fix mistakes and bad habits later.

The biggest thing is to make it fun think of it as a trick or a game. If you or the dog just aren't doing well at one training session stop, take a breath, ask for a behavior the dog really can do well. When the dog does it reward for it and end on that good note and try again later. 
Go through the process in your mind and see what you have done to confuse the dog.  They are smart they will do what we ask them to do even if we didn't realize that is what we asked for.


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## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

Just to add a bit to Sol Invictus' post. Sometimes they just don't get it at all. I always go back to something that they are good at, something that is easy and end with that. Always ALWAYS end on a successful note.


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

solinvictus said:


> Again in the beginning it is really important to reward along the seam of the pants in heel position.


That is a terrific way to explain it. I keep explaining it as "right at your side, when he's in the position you want" or "drop your hand straight down and keep the treat facing backwards." I'm going to add "seam of the pants" to my spiel, because I think it would really help people visualize where that reward should come from, especially with the smaller dogs and pups.


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

One more vote against flexis here. If your dog is trained on one and you use it to let him have more leeway to run around but still be on leash, more power to ya.

Here are the problems people run into: First, they put constant pressure on the collar. I really think that's confusing when you're trying to also teach a dog to listen to pressure on the collar as information that he is moving too far ahead.

Second, they can burn you badly or even literally cut off a finger if they get pulled across a body part or looped around it when a dog is pulling.

Third, if somebody allows their dog to come and interact with yours without asking, you have no way to reel in your pup, and you have all this cord with tension in it looping around the dogs. The potential is just too high for injury.

So I own one for board-and-train clients in case I need to take them out and want them to have a bigger range of motion than they can on a 6-foot lead, but I really haven't used it in years. The 6-footer seems to work just fine for most training applications and walks.


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## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

Thanks for reinforcing that Brian. I really believe that my problems with Penny pulling were self-inflicted by using the flexi- lead from the very beginning.


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## laprincessa (Mar 24, 2008)

tippykayak said:


> One more vote against flexis here. If your dog is trained on one and you use it to let him have more leeway to run around but still be on leash, more power to ya.
> 
> Here are the problems people run into: First, they put constant pressure on the collar. I really think that's confusing when you're trying to also teach a dog to listen to pressure on the collar as information that he is moving too far ahead.
> 
> ...


I have to agree with Penny's Mom about this - I think a lot of the problems I've had with Max pulling have been because I used the flexi-lead in the beginning and he learned that the pressure on the collar got him where he wanted to go.

I'd also like to add, Max actually broke one of those leads - he yanked so hard because a car was coming down our driveway that he broke the wire and left me holding the handle.


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## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

Quick update: I've been using this method with Mr. Darcy and at 16 weeks, he is wonderful to walk with. I started in the house with him almost immediately, as soon as we got him home. It's been a brutal winter so I worked outside with him very sporadically but did manage to get some practice on the driveway.

He's off to a great start with loose leash walking.


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## Thalie (Jan 20, 2008)

I am not a good or experienced trainer but I got two cents to add anyway  

It takes time and lots of repetition with a lay person like me.I have walked Col in the neighboorhood since she was about 4 months old. She is now one year and she is at the point when I have her by my leg 80% of the time; we still have some pulling (more sideways to sniff than forward); we still have some all breaks on stops (to sniff); we still use treats but way more sparingly. Give yourself and the pup time; do not forfeit tomorrow's walk because today's has been awful, develop a plan (we had to avoid a whole section of our walk for a couple of weeks because I could not find a way to deal with a distraction that was there and it ruined the walk; we both came back home unhappy with each other); start each walk as a new event; do not be pigheaded (if it does not go well, cut it short, there is no reason to let frustration build up either on your part or the dog's part). 

There is no deadline set in stone; everything is a work in progress. Breathe in, breathe out, find the one thing he/she can do well and smile for each little success.


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## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

I'm in Michigan...we've been dealing with wind chills at 20 degrees below zero and even colder than that on some days. Brutal. Once it warmed up to 10 degrees above zero and he's had his shots, he hit the road. Our sidewalks are buried under 4 feet of snow. We have our driveway and the edge of the road. That's about it!


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## Shellbug (Nov 14, 2013)

Is it bad that Thor walks in front of me? He pulls from time to time but I am taking like a tug. It's at the beginning of his walk when he is all excited and eager to go walking. Once the leash gets tight i say "bear, wait for me" and he slows down or stops and waits for me to catch up. I do use a long leash as well so he has plenty of roaming around room in the wooded area. Maybe I need to be working more on a walk next to me ? 


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## Shellbug (Nov 14, 2013)

Thalie said:


> I am not a good or experienced trainer but I got two cents to add anyway
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What a great post. Thanks for the wise words. I get anxious at times and think we should be doing certain things at certain times. It's all in stride and at our pace. Thanks again 


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## laprincessa (Mar 24, 2008)

Thalie said:


> I am not a good or experienced trainer but I got two cents to add anyway
> 
> It takes time and lots of repetition with a lay person like me.I have walked Col in the neighboorhood since she was about 4 months old. She is now one year and she is at the point when I have her by my leg 80% of the time; we still have some pulling (more sideways to sniff than forward); we still have some all breaks on stops (to sniff); we still use treats but way more sparingly. Give yourself and the pup time; do not forfeit tomorrow's walk because today's has been awful, develop a plan (we had to avoid a whole section of our walk for a couple of weeks because I could not find a way to deal with a distraction that was there and it ruined the walk; we both came back home unhappy with each other); start each walk as a new event; do not be pigheaded (if it does not go well, cut it short, there is no reason to let frustration build up either on your part or the dog's part).
> 
> There is no deadline set in stone; everything is a work in progress. Breathe in, breathe out, find the one thing he/she can do well and smile for each little success.


After a winter of me with an injured ankle and snow up the wahzoo, we finally got out for a walk yesterday. Sir Maxwell has forgotten everything he knew, and apparently so had I, so it was not fun and I had to have a serious talk with myself on the way home. 
I was dreading going back today, even though I know it won't get better by sitting on the porch. I really needed to read this. Thank you!

And off we go to the park, where hopefully he won't try to kill me today.


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