15EPCVOD

Walking on leash is taught off leash. Puppies will follow anything that moves, so the basic technique is just to start walking in a counterclockwise circle with a puppy on the inside, and wait for him to notice and start following you. When he's anywhere near your left side, click and give a treat. You want the puppy to encounter distractions so he can learn that walking with you is a more reinforcing choice. Don't worry and don't say anything, let the puppy work it out. Once he seems to understand that being near your left side gets him a treat, you can wait until you take two steps, then three steps, and then gradually, you can work your way up to more and more steps. Once the puppy's walking several steps in a row with you, you can add a collar and then a leash. And now you're ready to take your puppy out into the world. If you've shaped it correctly, the puppy should automatically follow you anytime you call him to you and start walking. The leash is not a trainer and it's immaterial to teaching this behavior. You should use a leash when you walk your dog, but that leash is only there as a backup. Think of it as a mountain climber's safety rope. Not something you rely on, but could save your life when things go wrong. You can outrun puppies under 12 weeks old, so you can use any large space to do this exercise. But for older puppies and adult dogs, you should only do this exercise in a safely fenced in area. Here's Betty, ready for her very first leash-walking session. Let's learn how to do leashes. She has no idea she's supposed to be working. So I call her, reinforce her for coming to me, and then start walking. I'm going to click her any time she's within a few feet of my left side. At first, it doesn't matter if the puppy actually knows why she's getting clicked. Even if the puppy just happens to be in position, click. Just keep walking in a small circle, positioning yourself so that the puppy is on the inside. Looks like she's got it. Now we can boost the difficulty for her by adding a collar. With puppies, you have to take baby steps and change only one thing at a time. Adding a collar may not seem like a big challenge, but it's new and it feels funny on her neck. Once she is used to the collar, it's time to boost the difficulty again, by adding a leash-- Now you're going to have a leash on. Now we're going to add that on, yes. --which is a bit more of a challenge. The leash is tricky, because when the puppy hits the end of the leash, it activates his opposition reflex, and he'll naturally pull and fight against it. Continue to let the leash run through your fingers. Drop it if necessary and keep moving forward. The second your puppy starts moving toward you, click. In no time at all, the puppy will learn that hitting the end of the leash is a cue to come back to you. Once Betty's used to the leash, I boost the difficulty yet again by asking for two or three steps in position before I click. Yes, good girl. By the end of the session, Betty's walking about 12 steps on leash, which is more than enough for a puppy this age. She's getting tired, it's tough work. Whoa, this walking on a leash stuff is tough work. This session lasted just over two minutes, and it's time for a nap so Betty can process all she's learned. I think that's enough. I think that's enough for a tiny puppy, here's your puppies. Did you like it? That was a big lesson. Two days later, we have some visitors who are thinking about bringing home a puppy. And Betty's ready to demo her loose leash walking skills. And I'm going to click her. As soon as I put the collar on, give her a cookie. Whoa, so she has a good association with that. Betty's only had that one two-minute training session, yet she comes out 100% more confident than she was in the last session. This is a perfect example of the power of short sessions with lots of rest in between. Very nice. So you see how that kind of works. But training the puppies is only half the equation. The prospective owners also have to be taught how to communicate with the puppies. Rocco comes out to give them their first lesson. It's cold, it's out here, I'm by myself without my peeps. Puppy, puppy, puppy. Now it's Rosie's turn. Just start walking off. Your goal for a puppy younger than 12 weeks should be just a few steps with lots of treats. Teaching them to walk for longer distances and weaning them off treats will come later. Here, the tiny tug on the leash activates Rosie's opposition reflex, and she begins bucking and fighting the leash. The opposition reflex in dogs is powerful, and when you activate it by tugging on the leash, you could ironically wind up teaching the puppy to pull on the leash instead of walk with you. When she grabs it. Yeah, you just wait till she looks at you. OK. Yeah, that's it. She'll forget about it right away. If, on the other hand, you avoid tugging on the leash while you're training him, your puppy will learn not to fight the leash, and you'll never have a problem with it. Just two minutes spent on this exercise now will save you hours of training in the future, and laying the foundation for many enjoyable walks together in the years to come.