Your Dog is pulling on lead? It’s predictable!
Pulling on lead is predictable so let’s stop walking your dog and work out what to do. Pardon?! How do you walk your Dog without leaving the house? Change your House! Seriously thouh, this is not pulp fiction or something that involves putting your home on the market. No, it’s about rethinking your dogs environment and helping them learn skills that will reshape their thinking and that will lead to a desired behaviour you want. That elusive loose-lead walking! Dogs pull on lead for a couple of big reasons. Lets look at this more.
WHY?
There is something called the ‘Opposition Reflex’. First identified by Ivan Pavlov (Yes, he of the ‘dog salivating when they saw or heard something.’ experiment). He named it the “Freedom Reflex’. In Animal training terms, it is now known as the ‘Opposition Reflex’ and it’s instinctive. When you pull against the lead, the dog will pull in the opposite direction. Push gently against your dog as if to move them away when they want to be close to you and they will respond with gentle pressure against you.
Another big reason is because your Dog feels that they are going to have more fun and predict that it will be ahead of you and not next to you. Simply put, they prefer the environment around them rather than being by your side and relaxing. How on earth do we change this when you have instinct and a dogs brain telling them there’s something more exciting just around the corner?
HOW?
Start by ditching the walk and changing your house! Yes, it’s true. You need to help reshape your Dogs brain so that they find real value in being near you and not away from you. Help build their desire to listen to you, hang around with you and feel fulfilled. Start by playing in every room your dog is allowed in. Yes even in the hallway. Show your dog that change doesn’t haven’t to be scary. In fact, when they hang around you and have fun, it’s normal and rewarding.
Scatter feeding around the home is HUGE! o your dog doesn’t see, scatter food around the room, making sure your dog doesn’t see, so that your dog has to find it with your help to begin with. Don’t use your voice, just point to the area they need to be looking in. Next, just letting them find it by themselves is even more fun but you set up the scenario so they know it wouldn’t happen without you. . We want to enrich their lives at home so that they start to view their life as more fulfilling. An emotionally fulfilled dog does not pull on lead.
WHERE?
Work on walking your dog in the house on lead. Yes, really! Start by taking out the lead, the harness or the lead and their favourite toy by picking it up and putting it down, without going on the walk. We need to make the predictors that a walk is coming, much more unpredicitable. Basically, turning them into a non-event for your dog. Start just in one room, picking up and putting down. When you’re ready and your dog is calmer about going on a walk, starting walking around the house with the same objects, going through the same process, slowly adding one room a time.
When the above is at the stage where your dog shows less excitement and interest in the tools of the walking trade, you can start to add putting the lead walking into practice around the home. Yes, really! Would you like to talk it through, send me an email via the contact page and I will get back in touch and help you discover what type of training best suits your needs. Click HERE to get in touch. You can greatly accelerate the process by learning even more with me, by booking a One 2 One block of sessions. Click on the link HERE to learn more about the process and how to book.