How To Stop Leash Pulling and Dog Reactivity
How to solve leash pulling
Dogs pull on leash for a multitude of reasons:
- They move faster than us.
- Their focus is not on the owner.
- The owner consistently puts tension in the leash, causing the dog to pull and reinforcing the pulling.
- The list goes on.
Dog Training gimmicks and bandaids
There are so many gimmicks out there in dog training.
Bungee leashes, head, halters, different types of collars, magical, harnesses, etc., etc. etc..
All of these things are for people who don’t understand the core principles of dog behaviour and training and the companies know this so they market to the uninformed.
Nothing will replace the value and benefit of teaching your dog to focus on you.
Reread that statement it is an important one.
Nothing will replace the value and benefit of teaching your dog to focus on you.
The best way to solve leash pulling is to teach your dog to focus on and follow you.
Take a look at these videos for examples.
This large and powerful Doberman used to drag his owner everywhere at warp speed, pulling, barking, lunging and jumping all over.
After proper obedience training, he is now a very focussed and willing training partner and just such a beautiful and happy dog to watch in action.
Teaching your dog to focus
Teaching a dog to focus involves a skill set on the dog trainers part.
It involves fundamentals of dog training, such as understanding when and how to reinforce both what you want and do not want and how to exaggerate the positive so that eventually the dog wants what we want and our goals are in alignment.
Watch the dog in the videos and watch how he not only works and follows direction, but does so with a bounce in his step and with joy.
The movement and attitude he displays signifies a joy in his work that goes well above and beyond simply “doing his job”.
Reactive dogs
Reactive Dogs by definition are focused and reacting to stimuli in their environment. If we want to help improve a reactive dogs behavior, we have to shift their focus from whatever has the magnetic pull to the core of your dog and transfer that onto us so that the dog can follow our lead and our direction.
Building The On/Off switch for your dog’s focus
The on off switch is something I focus on with my clients day in and day out.
The more clarity a dog has with this aspect of training the easier it is to communicate with the dog, to guide, steer and direct our training partner.
Watch the second video to understand this better. This dog knows very clearly when we are healing and he is very focussed and then when I release him, he bounces around like a baby deer.
He is very silly and playful, which brings joy to work and I know how to exaggerate this for him. I love my dogs to be playful and joyful in training. It gives them purpose in their work.
This is also very useful to give the enjoyable moments and training, but it builds the dogs focus in anticipation for the next release.
Furthermore, it reinforces our on switch because the faster heat turns on the faster we get to work the sooner we can then have another release and play and then gradually we build the time to our next release.
By releasing him repeatedly and allowing him these little micro explosions the dog is also learning to control himself when he is excited and adrenalized, which goes along way towards helping us navigate through big distractions out in the real world.
