Dog Owner Question: How to train a loose leash walk?

Boone, a client's dog, walking through York's Marketfest
with me.

I am sorry to inform you, I can't even summarize this in a short article with a quick tip.   That being said, if you are willing to do the work and practice it is not hard.  Loose leash walking is one of the most common things asked for by dog owners.   This is one of the fastest and easiest things to start in dog training, but you do actually have to train and teach your dog how to do it.   It is not going to get better if you try and wait it out (or you will only get there when your dog becomes geriatric).   When first training basic obedience, this is usually one of the first things we work on from day one.   Then it is practiced and maintained going forward as the rest of obedience is built upon loose leash walking.

What exactly is loose leash walking?   When people talk about this, they are not usually talking about the more formal command "heel".   However, it means that the dog can walk on the leash without going to the end of it and pulling or putting pressure on the leash.  The dog has learned and knows how to walk on a leash in partnership with their owner.

Good boy Boone enjoying Marketfest with me.

Loose leash walking is a very important skill for a dog to have.   It allows the dog to go to more places outside of the home, and makes the walks enjoyable to BOTH the owner and the dog.  It builds confidence and impulse control, which you will appreciate even more so if you have a reactive dog.

Trust me, the dog is not comfortable pulling or lunging against their collar.    Dogs in general are much happier when the owner is not frustrated with them as well.   By teaching this to your dog, you are only going to improve their life as well as your enjoyment of bringing them out with you.

As for methods (or parts of methods, as a method is the whole process of teaching obedience via a plan) there are many:

1. There is the old stand like a tree when your dog hits the end of the leash.   Most dogs need a little more than this when they get older.   I find it useful for very young puppies to get started on this (among other ways).
2. There is the Mike Ellis type method for which will rely on your building a relationship based on engagement for you and your dog.   I have used this with my dogs, but not as the only method yet.
3. There is the long line method that I use for dogs six months and older that is based off the beginning of the Koehler method.    Of course the use for this is to build whole obedience skills with this as simply the start.  Generally, I find this a great way of laying a foundation not only for obedience but impulse control as well.
4. Personally, I like to train a formal heel and then loosen that up at a later date.  I find (for me) that makes the process a lot less frustrating and ultimately faster.  Plus, I use heel quite a bit anyway.  I do start heel with the long line above.

The things to think about when choosing a method are the following:

1. What are your specific goals?  Different owners have different goals that could effect the method of training preferred (for example they may later want to work in agility, free style dancing, or maybe they just want a nice family pet).
2. What is the temperament of your dog and are you having any other problems that you need to address?   Sometimes you can take your time training your dog, and other times other factors may make training an immediate safety need.  You also may need to take current behavioral problems into consideration.
3. How old is your dog or puppy?   Adult dogs and puppies younger than six months old are generally trained in a different way with different expectations.  Young puppies are not mature enough yet to give the same performance or perform to expectations of a mature older adult.
4. What is your dog mellow, hyper, or fearful?   This may also effect the method you wish to adopt going forward.   
5. Who else regularly interacts with your dogs and do they have any special needs?
6. What is the dog owner's health and activity level like?  There are some training methods that require more physically of the dog owner than others, especially in the first few weeks or months.

My newest dog, Shana, has been brought up on two methods or two modified parts of two tweaked methods.   Here she is doing the more formal, fuss or focused heel.   This really helps with the more informal loose leash walking.  The video below is more the Mike Ellis type of engagement training.

There is a lot to think about when choosing the method for your dog.   It is best to have a professional dog trainer walk you through it, if you are not already familiar with some of these methods and concepts.

In the video link above, Boy was taught to do a loose leash walk in about 7 to 8 days.   Then his performance continued to improve as his training was continued and maintained.   Boy had some serious behavioral problems and fear in general.  So if a dog like Boy (who was fearful and moderately aggressive) can be taught and learn, then it is super easy to teach this to a dog without behavior problems.

The final outcome of loose leash walking should look something like this:)

Contrast, Engagement, Release Period, and Capping

What do these four words have in common?  These are all areas that my training with Shana have been focusing on in some new ways for me.  

So Shana is a bossy, highly driven dog from nice working lines.   She is the first for me as having been picked out for health, longevity, smarts, and the ability to perform athletic tasks repeatedly.   The high drive area has caused me to make some mistakes along the way, and therefore cause some challenges to our training in the past.   Getting back on track has taken some thought and focus on my part for the training plan that will bring us out and forward onto our training goals.  The parts of my training plan that I have been focusing on (besides the foundation that is always in my thoughts in a training plan), can be summed up by the words contrast, engagement, release period, and capping.

So what do the words in my title mean for dog training and my training plan for Shana?

1. Contrast-  Usually this is reward vs correction.   Of course both those terms in dog training are really pretty general.  A reward is anything that motivates or pleases the dog enough to want to repeat a behavior again to get it.  This can be anything from a dog treat to adventures outside of some sort.   So this can be instantaneous gratification or something they know will come or continue.   A correction is simply a means of correcting either non performance of a command or correcting the performance of a command to be more specific or on target.   A correction can be guiding, molding (although this can also be demonstration), body bumping, collar correction, or a marker like "no".   So in terms of working with Shana contrast to me has been more "I am so pleased with your performance" (shown many ways and ultimately the reward because that motivates her) or "Nope not what I am looking for at all." (a correction of sorts which could just be not handing off the reward or even put in a command for not behaving appropriately).  Shana is getting the contrast, and moving at all times towards earning the "I am so pleased with your performance" side of things.  Actually a recent online seminar that I took given by Tony Ancheta, made me think a lot about contrast in regards to Shana.   
2. Engagement-  This is a term that I first heard when starting to follow Mike Ellis.   This is about having interactions with the owner/handler/trainer become the motivating factor.   It is much more than giving a dog a toy or food for proper performance.   It is being that interaction becoming pleasing because it involves the owner/handler/trainer.  Engagement (done correctly because I made some errors here in the beginning) also allow things that were stressful to begin to become insignificant to the dog.
3. Release Period or Release Valve-  So when I first started training, I learned to do this in blocks of an hour or more.   These were very focused training sessions that involved repetition.   As I have been evolving as a trainer, I have been finding shorter sessions more useful especially as the dog gains more skill and more complex behaviors.   Not to say that every now and again, we might work for an hour, we do.   When I was at Tyler Muto's seminar earlier this year, one thing he talked about was after doing something difficult or stressful with a dog to let their be a short period of release, which can actually be within the training session.  I think this also goes along with methods of gaining engagement for your dog as well.  The example that I saw in the seminar was a dog learning the send to place.   If they then clearly wanted to stay on the place or hang out after released, they were allowed that space and time to take some breathes before starting up again.  This made me think about Shana, because often when she gets anxious she loads up, and through training her now I have found a period of release allows her to internally calm back down.  Also being around dogs that are here rarely or are entirely new, is stressful to Shana.   So with this in mind, I have been mindful of making sure that her time in that environment is limited.   
4. Capping-  The first time I heard this was again when I first started to follow Mike Ellis and his methods.   This concept has been the newer concept to me, because working a dog in drive in the first place is also a new concept to me.  This is something I have been experimenting with since 2011 with drive in mind.   This concept is basically about teaching a dog to control their behavior when in drive.   Shana definitely needs this, because when she tends to load up in drive she has a hard time not using her teeth to communicate that (redirecting her excitement to my leg or butt for instance).

Based on the changes in Shana's understanding of what to not do and what to do these last months, this effort on my part in really dissecting what we are doing is paying off:)   That is really exciting and very enjoyable for the both of us.  Obviously, it has also made public walks a lot less drama filled and stressful for the both of us.  

There is a lot more to the training plan and story.   These were easy to sum up though as areas of concentration for Shana.  I will be posting more on this in the future.

Shana Summer 2016 Update

Shana and her little "brother", Ziggy

I last blogged about my own personal dog, Shana, this April 2016.   We have been doing a ton of work since then, and it is paying off in spades.  Shana is becoming more confident and happy around strange dogs, her training is going great (when I work with her of course), and hence bringing Shana out in public is becoming a lot less stressful for me.   Not to mention, being on the right track training wise with Shana's training plan, which I measure through her progress and behavior, has me a lot less stressed.   I am much happier because I see that Shana is becoming much happier with her confidence and becoming less stressed.

As a dog trainer, it is a hard thing to realize you probably made this problem for your dog, and you need to figure out how to fix it.   It's taken a lot of trial and error in the previous two years to figure out the right training plan for her to fix this (I go over those highlights in my April 2016 blog).

Here are some brief video highlights of successful training moments:

1)  Finding a strange dog or a dog she hasn't seen for a year in the dog room used to mean a melt down no matter what.  Now we were able to walk into the room without any drama, bullying, or protest.



2)  I have just started to be able to use Shana s the "non reactive" dog in the room while walking clients through their dog's similar issues.  A small dog barking at her, is not something Shana would have tolerated calmly in the past.  Not at all.



3)  Walking on the beach  leashed or loose dogs at a much farther distance used to be very stressful.   Now we can get much closer, but I didn't want to intrude too much upon the family enjoying their leashed puppies the other day:)  It was a good enough practice for Shana, who was (though not showing it on tape) not totally unconcerned.



Plus many other good things have been going on as a result of our training plan.   These by far are making our life much easier and more fun.

Shana has a lot of will and energy, and refocusing it in a way that is mutually beneficial has been an education to say the least LOL.