This video talks about what exercises to work on when your dog suddenly starts to pull again on leash. It also goes over the concept of training your dog to stop when you stop on a walk and how that can build your dog’s attention on your movement. I also show doing the exercise when walking multiple dogs. I have 5 dogs, that I sometimes walk in a big group, however I also give the dogs separate walks and one on one time with me where I can follow the dogs and let them choose where to go. It is not necessary to teach a dog to walk at your side if you live in the county your dog could be off leash on all walks, however I suggest still training it for those times where you might need to go to a vet or you are traveling and visiting a busy city.
If you do live in a city, you can have your dog walk next to you when passing by lots of people in a busy street, and then make sure you find areas along the way where you can invite your dog to “go sniff” and let him explore the environment and make choices about which direction to go in as you follow behind.
Here are the links to the video tutorials I mention:
The leash pressure game
Puppies- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKG89GVOJiM&vl=en
Adults-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4vEayrRyB0
Settle on a mat
The 6 week self study course Leash Walking CONNECTED: (The course is 49$ for lifetime access)
Taking turns taking treats
And some extras that might be useful to you:
Working with multiple dogs in training sessions
Let’s go
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Happy Training! – Emily Larlham (AKA Kikopup)
#professionaldogtraining #dogtraining #leashwalking
Brilliant tutorial as always. I can honestly say without hesitation that your 6 week leash walking connected course is excellent. Definitely recommend it 100%.
When you was clicking feeding treats my girl was paying full attention & sniffing. We always watch your tutorial videos together.
Thanks so much for you endless commitment, enthusiasm & awesomeness. Absolutely loving what you do. Thanks so much.
Thanks so much to you for always taking the time to comment! I know it makes a big difference to how many people see the video 🙂 🙂 🙂
@Dog Training by Kikopup Always love your tutorials. Have learned so much from you & continue to do so. Always explaining everything in very simple easy to digest, follow & remember Steps. No expensive equipment required. Thank you so much for your dedication. Your the best.
With loose leash walking more than anything: Use it or lose it.
I had someone else walk my well trained dog for a while and after I got her back she pulled like hell. We also rehearsed our training for a while and now she’s back to normal. Giving in to leash pressure and stopping when you stop are very useful skills! 🙂
Yeah that happens. It can be so frustrating. I often suggest having the dog sitter clip the leash in a different way, say if the dog uses the leash clipped at the back to have the sitter clip at the front, or vice versa. For some dogs it really helps to tell the “difference” but for others it doesn’t make much of a difference.
@Dog Training by Kikopup I think it was because the person allowed the dog to pull, as in, let the dog pull her towards things and pull ahead while walking and not interacting with the dog at all, instead of stopping and getting the dog to focus on where the human is who holds the leash.
@Amziss dogs should not be in high arousal around treats. Learning can’t happen this way. She has some videos on how to train calmness around food, you should check them out. It will help you a great deal with your future pup!
These videos always help me so much. Thank you for making them.
My main problem with loose leash training is that my dog is SO good at walking with a loose leash when I have treats (he knows the training bag, if I just have them in a pocket or if I’m trying to hide them so he doesn’t focus on the treats). If he realizes that I don’t have anything to give him, he goes right back to whatever he wants to do. It makes a lot of sense because he’s so curious and I try to let him sniff and do whatever, but because he’s a big, young boxer I’m afraid that when he gets so excited and suddenly pulls that he will hurt himself. I feel like my reinforcement is probably not timed correctly.
I suggest treating loose leash walking like a “moving settle” – with the settle you are feeding the dog for not thinking about the food when they are relaxing and just chilling. So with leash walking, as you walk and your dog is casually at your side looking forward use a calm marker and give a treat, if the dog then thinks its time to train you can show empty hands and say “all done, go sniff” or some other cue to keep enjoying the walk.
Thank you for making such great videos!! You have no idea how much your videos have helped me and my dogs!🙌🏻❤️
Awe thanks! That makes me so happy!
I always get SOOO excited when you post a new video. I always watch each video at least twice every time. You always give the best tips in a way anyone can understand. Happy Halloween!!!
Awe thanks! That means a lot to me!
Love this! Had to redo leash pressure and other exercises with my dog after a holiday (where she was off leash very often). Always nice to see new videos fr you 🥰
Yeah that can happen. I stopped walking my dogs off leash in this one trail where we went head to head with a pack of a coyotes. I screamed my lungs out…But after that everyone was on leash and it was a little bit frustrating for all of us but after 2 weeks we were back on track. It was just not worth the risk of loosing one of my small dogs forever…
Hi Emily, that’s very helpful, but I found that my dog (18 months old collie x Labrador, hasn’t castrated) is walking well, he loves rewarding by treats and very focus in the house or in the garden, however recently when we go out, even just on our driveway, he is very very alert to every single thing and extremely crazy with sniffing. Also he doesn’t want any treats outside even it’s his favourite sirloin, sometimes he would take the treats, then just split it out on the ground.
I suggest doing what I suggested in the video, settle on the mat and then settle on the mat outside on leash. This exercise can actually get dogs to start eating when outside because it helps them calm down enough for their body to start wanting to eat again.
Do you have any tips for mounting? My puppy is about 8 months and he’s starting to do it more often and I’d like to come up with a plan before he starts doing it too much and the behavior becomes self-reinforcing. It seems hard to me because it’s hard to predict when it will happen, sometimes he plays for an hour and doesn’t mount once, other times he’ll do it several times in the first 5 minutes of play, other times he won’t for 30 minutes and then randomly start. And he also has a hard time listening when he’s playing with another dog. So I can’t predict when it will happen to prevent it, and no command seems to interrupt him (I would like ‘off’ to be the word but I use that for jumping from somewhere higher to lower so I don’t know if he’s connected that with getting off another dog). So what I’ve resorted to is physically pulling him off by grabbing his harness and having him sit by me for ~10 seconds to hopefully chill out before he can play again. But this feels so reactionary and I’m not showing him what I’d rather him do- which is just to keep playing, but how am I supposed to reward him for playing nicely when the best reward for that is continued play? Maybe I’m just over thinking this. Anyway, I’ve tried researching this specific issue multiple times and I can’t find any methods that seem like they will actually work. Hopefully you have a magic answer? 🤞🏻
Great video, I had never seen these tips about stopping and walking with multiple dogs.
I don’t know if you have one, but also would be amazing to know your strategies to walk a dog with a bike, It could be beside you, or in front of you (like bikejoring a mushing modality). I would love to take my dogs for a walk with my bike, but I’m afraid of an accident if they decide to go chasing squirrels or another dog.
howlingdogalaska.com/ has great gear for mushing. I am not an expert on bikes and attachments. I suggest getting in contact with Urban Mushing groups for set ups and training needed
These last videos have been amazing, hitting all the topics that I’m interested in. Especially the one about high distraction recalls
Oh yay!
Awesome video as always! Thanks Emily
You’re welcome
I have a 1 year old German pit and a 5 year old chihuahua mix (I’m not sure about his breed) and I never actually bothered training them till now. I love your videos so much!! They’ve truly helped me a lot even with the little time I’ve had to train them.
I have a travel size beach towel. I’m going to try and take that with us on our walks and use as her “mat.” My dog is very overly excited when walking and wants to pull and smell EVERYTHING. The calming mat placemen every so often is a good idea!
Thank you for the content which is super helpful. You are doing awesome job. 😊
Oh thank you!
I have been diligently watching your videos to work with my soon to be 5 month old puppy. She does really well with me during training sessions walking indoors (even with distractions) but the moment we start training walks outdoors it seems she is so reinforced by the environment, that she forgets everything. I also am working on undoing what we may have done mistakenly by sending her on actual walks (just to explore) with my husband before she has been trained to walk is to have her super-reinforced by the outside. Keep up all your good work. If you ever start boarding puppies (& handler :-)) for a short term and train them, let me know and I’ll be the first to sign up 🙂 In the meanwhile I just signed up for the dogmatics self study packages and will work on this in the coming weeks
Hi Emily, I appreciate your efforts in putting together the leash walking connected study course and I have been following through each step, however I am still having issues with walking my dog, particularly when going home. I have a 2 year old corgi named Waffle who only wants to walk a specific route when I take him for a walk. When i try take him on another route, he is extremely hesitant and normally puts on the brakes. Your course has helped him move along a different route just slightly before he begins to put on the brakes again, so i am just hoping overtime this becomes better as I continue practicing the different training exercises. Funny thing is, when my partner takes Waffle for a walk (we don’t even live with each other and my dog doesn’t even see him that often), Waffle does not hesitate to go anywhere with him, we can go any route and he is happily fine to walk with him. My assumption is that he is way more exciting that I am? But i’m not sure how to fix this. Please provide me any suggestions! Thank you (you’re my number 1 dog trainer on youtube 🙂
Useful video. I’m in the process of refreshing loose leash walking with my 16 month old dog. She was doing pretty well until a couple weeks ago when we got a bunch of snow and cold temperatures. I think it’s a combination of the uneven terrain (people aren’t good at shoveling sidewalks in my neighborhood) and the cold making her want to move faster. I tolerated it just enough that the pulling became reinforcing. I think I need to really start emphasizing the leash pressure game. The other variable is that I’ve been using a 15 or 20 foot long line while we’re hiking to give her more space to explore, and I’m hoping it will emphasize that she needs to stop or return to me when she hits the end of that line. She often does that anyways, but I’d rather get that closer to 100%!
Congrats on your Guinness Record! You are an amazing trainer. I love your videos and pass them on to help many dog owners.
I’ve been watching all your videos, almost. Question for you, I want to bring my miniature Australian Shepherd to walk with me around the neighbourhood and moving on to more of a city setting. I have been avoiding dog parks and anywhere that has lots of dogs right now.
Jax is only a puppy, 16 weeks old, and I have been leash training him at home and he gets it. I moved on to training him outside on my yard and he is doing great with lots of distractions such as cars passing by, birds and etc. I teached him how to settle as well. My question is, at what age and what kind of behaviour will I have to see from him in order for me to slowly transition to a more busy setting for instance walking in the city to go to a cafe? I’m concerned to take a step too far or not realizing if he’s ready such as if he gets really distracted he will leash pull for a bit. Then I take a step back and like you said, refresh his leash training.
Also, for the settle, once he masters it, would I slowly use a verbal cue “settle” in public without a mat? He settles even without the mat. Thank you.
really helpful video (as always), thank you
thanks for leaving a comment it means a lot 🙂