Leash Walking Training For Dogs That Are ALWAYS Pulling!

Hi, I'm Jess. I am the founder of Petexpertise.com and a professional certified dog trainer for over ten years. And today I'm here with Samalea. And we're gonna show how to do some loose leash walking training. And she's never done this before. We don't know each other all that well, so we'll see how it goes.

I'm going to be using a clicker, even though she doesn't know what that means. You can also use the word "yes" in doing this procedure. So first we're going to start off with, oh, let me mention she's in a regular collar and leash, which is fine, but you might have better success with a freedom harness, and a six to ten foot leash is good.

Okay. So first we're going to work on just letting her know that I have food and she maybe should pay attention to me. (gives her a treat) "Hi there. Hi. What's this? Yay. Find it? Didn't know it bite me. It's right there. Get it. Good girl." So after she eats that good, she looks at me, I'm going to feed her another treat. She's not used to getting a lot of treats. Good girl. Yeah. Okay. Find it. Good. So let's see if she orients back to me. Excellent. So now I'm going to try adding a little movement and I'm going to put my treat by my foot right there.

Then I'm going to move a little bit and I'm going to click here for coming towards me and put the treat at my foot. Move a couple of steps if you guys can still see me. Good girl. So I'm clicking when she looks up at me, and I'm feeding by my foot right here. As this gets better and easier, you can feed by your thigh, but it's really important not to feed in front of you so the dog doesn't come in front.

So what do you do if she's not paying attention? Let's say she's distracted. I can't even distract her. So good girl. You're so good. Okay, so I'm going to put a little tension on the leash. No jerking. And then just wait, maybe make a little sound. See, when she looks back towards me is when I'm going to click and treat. Good girl. Right here. Come on.

There are a lot of dogs don't know what leash tension means. And if the dog gets stuck, you might just need to give her a little bit of a lure. Good girl. She's kind of knowing what it means now, so if we're walking along and she's forgotten me and she's gone out ahead, I'm just going to turn 180 and wait for her to look at me. There you go. And this will become easier as you go.

I know a lot of dogs are a lot quicker than Somalia because she's a large breed. Good girl. Yeah. So good. Yeah, that's a nice sit. So you want to begin this practice inside, actually, and then you're going to start like, this is her driveway. So you could start there for your next and then just up and down the front of your house, like the street.

So you want to build up to distractions. Distractions are what's really challenging, like seeing another animal, a person. So the most important thing is that you don't allow your animal, your dog, to go forward while pulling. So you're going to do the 180. Let's practice that again with her. She really doesn't understand. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah. Come on. Come on. You're really slow.

So to show you the lure method, so I'm going to get right in her face. There you go. Come on. There. Okay. Because sometimes when they feel that pressure, they just freeze. Right. Can't remember what I was saying there. So, yeah, if your dog's getting distracted, try to work longer in a more calm area. Do lots of rewarding for your dog looking at you can feed here or here.

I like to feed down there because that slows the energy down a bit. And you can use your clicker, or you can say yes. Every time you click, you feed a treat. And you're not using your clicker as an attention getter.

And I also like to start by saying let's go, and finish by saying free so it looks like this. "Let's go", "Come on", "Good girl", And then when I'm all done and I want her to go be a dog and sniff around, I say "free". And that means there's no more food, so she can chill out. Okay, guys, I hope that was helpful, and thanks so much for watching. Bye.