Loose Leash Walking, Part 1

Loose Leash Walking (LLW) is a very important skill. It saves your arms, neck and back a lot of stress and strain. It saves the dog's neck, throat, trachea and shoulders a lot of stress and even damage. A dog that is pulling like a freight train is no fun and won't get walked except for essential business. You can start training loose leash walking as soon as you get your puppy at 8 weeks or whenever you get an teen or adult dog. If you've had your dog a long time, even if he's a veteran leash-puller, you can begin teaching loose leash walking at any time.

One of my clients started teaching her dog how to walk on a loose leash when the dog was seven years old. She was trying to get her dog to be certified as a personal assistance dog and walking on a loose leash was one of the requirements. Even at that age, after a lifetime of pulling, the dog was able to learn how to walk on a loose leash and is now a certified assistance dog.

LLW has been called both the easiest and the hardest behavior to teach. Its easy because its really a very simple behavior and any dog can learn to walk at your side without pulling (yes, even sled pulling breeds). Its relatively simple to teach a dog impulse control, the basis for loose leash walking.

Its hard to teach because life gets in the way or owners "forget" and randomly reinforce pulling on the leash. And, (if you read the entries on reinforcement you already know this) behaviors on a variable reinforcement schedule are the strongest and most durable of behaviors. Therefore, I recommend a three part approach.

• Management for those times when training is not feasible.
• Teaching impulse control with the "Walking With A Goal" game.
• Training loose leash walking as a lifestyle behavior.

What's the difference between Loose Leash Walking and Heeling?
Heeling is part of competitive obedience and requires the dog to stay in a perfect heel position. The dog has a very small area to stay in during a moving behavior, must be constantly focused on their handler, and must promptly sit squarely in position when the handler stops. While its beautiful to watch and fun to train, heeling is hard work for the dog and not suitable for a long walk. Loose Leash Walking is like gently holding hands and taking a walk. You can enjoy the walk and enjoy your friend without having to be totally focused for the whole walk. Heeling is far too formal and intensive for a long walk. Dogs that do learn to walk casually in LLW position and without pulling, get to go many more places than dog's that don't.

Management
The purpose for management is to keep your dog from practicing leash pulling. Practice doesn't make perfect; practice makes you perfect at what you practice, even if you are practicing doing it wrong. If your dog practices pulling on the leash, he'll get very good, even perfect, at leash pulling.

There are many excellent tools and techniques to help you walk your dog, when:

• you aren't prepared to train,
• training isn't feasible,
• there isn't time to train,
• you or the dog is too tired or distracted to work and learn,
• or you are dealing with an emergency.

Keep in mind that you won't be teaching your dog anything. These are tools and strategies to get you through those management times. Even after your dog is well trained in loose leash walking, there may still be times when management is the best option. You may have worked diligently to teach your dog how to walk on a loose leash and have also worked through every distraction you can think of. Still there may come a time when you will find a new distraction and not have time to train at that moment. Or perhaps your dog is frightened by something and temporarily forgets how to walk on a loose leash. This is the time to use management.

Head Halter
There are several brands and they work on the same principle as a halter on a horse. If a small person can control a 1500 pound horse with a halter, surely a dog isn't an issue. If the dog pulls, his head is turned toward the owner and where the head goes, the body must follow.

I once put a head halter on an unruly, untrained 2 year old Great Dane and within minutes the owner (post surgery and in a knee brace) had truly fingertip control. It's important to follow the directions to acclimate your dog to the feel of a head halter.

It is a key safety rule that you NEVER allow your dog to build up speed and hit the end of the leash while wearing a head halter. A head halter should never be used with any kind of flexi lead. Also any breed or individual dog with a pushed in nose, protruding eyes, or a very straight or arched face (without a "stop") is not a suitable candidate for a head halter.

Front Attachment Body Harness
The ring for leash attachment on this harness is located on a strap across the dog's chest. When the dog pulls, their own pulling action turns them back toward the owner. Ideally the owner should stop and wait for the dog to return to a more neutral position before proceeding.

A really large or especially powerful dog with a small owner, may still be able to pull, so the owner needs to use their own center of gravity to stop the dog. To do so, lock both hands into the loop of leash and keep the hands near your waist. When the dog pulls, move both hands to one side or the other at hip level and turn your body 180 degrees in that direction, while bracing against the dog (one foot in front of the other). By doing this you are using your best center of gravity to hold the dog, instead of trying to do so with your arms.

Standard Harness
If your dog is small to medium, a regular harness with the leash attached to a ring at the back is a viable management strategy. Yes, the dog is pulling, but not against its collar. To a dog, that is a clear and readily understandable distinction.

Gimme here: I am learning canine nosework and tracking. I have learned that I can pull all I want when I wear my pretty blue tracking harness. I've also learned that I can't pull when the leash is attached to my collar. I'm sure your dog is smart enough to understand the difference just like me. I'm just saying...

TTouch®  Balance Leash
If your dog is medium to large size, the balance leash technique might be the way to go. I recommend that you try this indoors first to sort out how to do this, to determine which style of Balance Leash works for you and your dog and to get comfortable with the technique. Also, you can go to youtube and search on "Walking In Balance with TTouch". Select the video by trainer Jenn Merritt.

Using a regular leash, attach it to the dog's collar. With the dog on your left side and facing forward, grab the leash with your left hand at a comfortable resting arm position. Your thumb should be pointed toward the back of your dog's head. In simple Balance Leash, you would just loop the rest of the leash in front of your dog's neck, holding the other end with your right hand.

If your dog tends to back or spin out of simple Balance Leash, you can solve that by letting the front loop go down just behind his elbow and then come up between his front legs and up along the right side of his neck. If your dog is a expert at spinning out of Balance Leash, you can slip the handle end up through his collar as well. In Balance Leash you can use two hands, like the reins on a horse, or when the dog is not pulling, you can put both parts of the leash into the left hand. It is easy to switch back and forth between one and two hands as needed.

Carry the Dog
If your dog is on the small side of medium or smaller and you just need to go a short distance - then pick her up and carry her. This is a good approach when you only need to get to the car or into the veterinarian's office.

Lure the Dog
In a pinch, it is perfectly acceptable to lure your dog a short distance to prevent letting him pull on the leash, so you don't have to worry about practicing leash pulling. You can lure your dog in a few different ways.

• You could put a hot dog or a stick of cheese right in his face and let him nibble on it all the way.
• You could buy a Go Toob from a camping supply store and fill it with tasty goodies, such as peanut butter, regular butter, cream cheese or baby food meats. Flip the top open and let your dog lick at it as you lead him to where you need to get to. You will need to refrigerate between uses, except with peanut butter (Gimme's personal favorite).
• You could lure your dog over a short distance with a favorite toy.
• You could play tug all the way.

The key to all of these is to pick one or two tools/strategies and try them out to see which works for you. Then be prepared, so when life intervenes, you can get your dog safely from one place to another, without undoing your work on Loose Leash Walking.

Luring to Get Behaviors

Luring is great for getting the dog to move or assume a position, such as luring into a sit or down, or luring them to walk alongside you.

The drawback to luring is that it is easy to get stuck with luring so that the dog only does the behavior when you have food held in front of their nose or in your hand. Sometimes dogs don't learn what we are trying to teach, for instance instead of learning to walk alongside you the dog learns to follow your fingers. You may not realize this until you test the learning when trying to walk your dog while carrying a bag of groceries.

Gimme here:  When I was a very young puppy, my person used food on the end of my nose to help me find my way over the dogwalk in our front yard.  She was careful to start out very low so I didn't get scared.  Before long I was running alongside my person over the dogwalk.  She's been making it taller and I still have a lot of fun with it.  She always gives me treats for running over it.  Sometimes when she is mowing the lawn I try to get her attention so she will see when I run over my dogwalk.  Sometimes I get treats and sometimes she tosses a stick for me.  I love my dogwalk.

Try to think of "Lure a little", so that you only lure with food in your hand a few times (five times maximum). To lure a behavior, hold a treat in front of your dog's nose and without letting him eat it, use it as a "nose magnet," since she'll probably follow it everywhere. After that lure with an empty hand (still smelly from holding the previous treat).  I deliver a treat to the luring hand from the other hand and then use the luring hand to deliver the treat to my dog (this way the luring hand stays in front of the dog the whole time).  After doing it that way about five times, then I start using the luring hand to get the treat out of my treat bag and deliver it to the dog.  Initially you might have to meet the luring hand halfway with the other hand until the dog understands that she still needs to stay there and wait for the treat to come to her.  Then you will need to "fade" your luring hand (make it less obvious until it isn't needed) in a gradual process, until it is simply a hand signal.

You can lure a sit by slowly moving the treat from the nose back towards the top of the head. Keep it low, so the dog doesn't jump up. As soon as he sits, click and treat. If the dog is trying everything but sitting, at first click/treat for lowering back legs and butt. Then see if you can gradually shape for a full sit.  Be sure not to lure too fast so that you lose the dog.  Be careful to fade the luring gradually so that it becomes the hand signal for your dog’s trick.

You can lure the dog to walk alongside you and gradually fade your hand up out of nose range and closer to your waist as if holding a leash.

Lure a Trick
I recommend luring a trick for your dog.  That is a good way to practice a training method so you can relax and enjoy the process, before you use luring for something important.  Remember, "important" is a human point of view; its all tricks to your dog.  Speaking of tricks, here's a list of possible tricks to lure:

spin
around you
over or under an obstacle
onto an obstacle
weave under the legs - stationary
weave through legs walking
zig-zag dance (turn away)
low crawl (butt stays down)
high crawl (butt up like bow)
ballerina (stand up)
sit up and beg
keep away... (a great heeling game, just try to get away from your dog once s/he knows the game)
dig on the floor (food under tape)
roll-over
dead bug (on back feet in air)
cha-cha (dog walks behind you with feet on your bum or back)
left and right
zoob-zoob-zoom

Remember: You are limited only by your own creativity.

Overall Training Plan

Stages of Learning
Effective training follows a pattern of "stages".  There are six stages of learning for you to work through if your dog is going to be well trained and reliable.  People who are training with canine performance goals in mind, should aim to train through all six stages.  Those who simply want an great companion who is a joy to live with, may not need to go that far.  Do realize, some behaviors don't even have all three of the last stages as components.

Once you teach your dog several behaviors and go through the 6 Stages of Learning for each, you notice your dog understands the pattern and knows what comes next.  With reward based training, your dog becomes a willing partner who is eager to learn.  So, the more you train the faster and easier it gets.  Be careful though - reward based training is so much fun that it can be really addictive.

The 6 Stages of Learning are:

1. Get the behavior
2. Add the verbal cue
3. Wait for the cue
4. Add distraction
5. Add duration
6. Add distance

Get the Behavior
In order to reinforce a behavior, you must first "get the behavior". You cannot reinforce what is not happening. There are five general methods to get a behavior: Capturing, Luring, Free Shaping, Targeting and Modeling.  Each will be discussed in detail in a separate blog entry.  They each have advantages and disadvantages.
 
People tend to have preferences about which they use the most. I have noticed many dogs seem to have preferences or at least differences in their learning style that make one or another more effective for them.
 
Your goal should be to have a working understanding of all five methods and know when to best use each.

In this blog you will notice that I speak of "shaping" a behavior and also "free shaping" as a method to get a behavior.

• Shaping refers to the process of gradually changing the behavior you are getting to get closer to a final version of the behavior.
• Free shaping as a method to get behavior refers to using shaping only with what the dog offers to you (i.e. not using capturing, luring, modeling or targeting to prompt the behavior).

Capturing is most effective for behaviors your dog already does in a more or less complete form. Such as: sit, sit up and beg, down and potty. Each dog has its own repertoire of things it does frequently. Capturing is not effective for teaching the dog to do something that he is unlikely to do naturally.

Luring is best used for getting the dog to move or assume a position, such as luring into a sit or down, or luring them to walk alongside you.

Free Shaping is sort of an advanced form of "capturing" and is used well for behaviors the dog does not offer or do naturally as a complete thing. It develops your dog's creativity and confidence and makes learning into a cool game for the dog.

Gimme here:  I especially love free shaping games.  I'm very clever and creative and I have oodles of confidence, so I can really shine when we play this game.  I'm not bragging, it's the truth.


Targeting is best used to get your dog to move somewhere or when a behavior involves a specific place. Your dog can be taught to target a margarine lid, target stick, your hand, his leash or his bed (or any thing for that matter).

Modeling/Molding involves physical manipulation of the dog into a position or place. It can be effective for simple behaviors with some dogs. Many dogs seem to resent being physically manipulated into position or are uncomfortable with being touched or held in certain ways.