Hi everybody! This video is on the topic of teaching your puppy what to do when
he feels pressure on leash either when he's run out and hit the end of the
leash or when you've had to add pressure, say for example your puppy runs into the
road and you need to move your puppy out of the road using leash pressure. Now of
course you can pick your puppy up in emergencies but if you have a puppy
that's going to turn into a larger adult dog at some point in his life you're
going to have to move your puppy with the leash. Now without any prior
training most puppies and dogs, when you pull on their leash, they 1 find it
aversive and 2 usually lean the other way. The same happens with human beings. If you
had a harness tied around your chest with a leash coming out of it and
someone pulled on it, you naturally would counterbalance by leaning backwards
rather than just following whoever pulls you. So basically in this exercise we're
teaching puppies that when they feel the pressure on the leash it's simply a cue
saying "come with me, we're moving in a different direction" and by creating a
positive association with the feeling of pressure on the leash, it simply becomes
a cue for the dog to want to move with you. Now if you work on this exercise
with the young puppy right from the beginning before the puppy starts
pulling a lot on the leash when you're out and about,
it actually can teach your puppy to walk on a loose leash. This is because if you
work on the exercise enough your dog is going to have a conditioned response
where they feel the pressure on the leash and it will cue them to come back
to you. Here are some exercises you should work on first before playing the
leash pressure game with your puppy. This is because you want to reinforce your
puppy for moving towards you, moving with you and moving with you when you make
direction changes and once you've reinforced all of these behaviors it
will make it way easier for the puppy to want to choose to move with you when you
add the leash pressure. In my opinion the 4 exercises that you want to work on
first are: the attention game, the recall, reinforcing your puppy for standing
next to you and walking next to you and reinforcing your puppy for direction
changes while walking at your side. Check out the written description below for
links to video tutorials on how to train these. This is footage of one of our
first outings to the park after letting my puppy explore and sniff the park I
spent 1 to 2 minutes playing the attention game, reinforcing the position
at my side and direction changes. The leash pressure game. Step 1 Add light
pressure on the leash as you lure your puppy forward and then feed a treat. The
point of this step is to accustom the puppy to the sensation of the leash
pressure so it's not a sudden surprise. I suggest attaching the leash to your
dog's harness when you play games like this as well as walk your dog. If you're
going to be walking your dog with the leash attached to the front of your
dog's harness you need to work on this exercise with the leash attached to the
front as well as in the back. Keep an eye on your puppy's tail and make sure it's
in a natural position and the puppy is not tucking their tail. If the puppy
starts to tuck the tail you can work on games like the attention game, the recall,
as well as handling exercises rather than working on the leash pressure game
yet. Step 2 Put a distraction down on the ground that makes the puppy pull on
leash. Use your attention noise or a treat lure to get your puppy to turn
around and come back to you.
What to do if your puppy doesn't turn around: 1 Practice from further away
from the distraction. (You can have a helper put down the distraction to make
this easier) 2 Use a lower value treat as the distraction and a higher value
treat as the reinforcer. Step 3 Put a distraction down on the ground that
makes the puppy pull on leash. When the puppy is on the tight leash move in the
opposite direction of the puppy without jerking him. Mark and reinforce when you
see your puppy turn in your direction. If the puppy doesn't turn toward you
within two seconds use your attention noise or treat lure to get your puppy to
turn around and come back to you. Good boy! Mark the moment the puppy turns
towards you and feed the puppy the treats as close to your body as you can
to train the puppy to come all the way to you. Mark and reinforce multiple times
for the puppy being at your side or being in front of you before you repeat
the exercise. If your puppy sits or lays down simply revert back to using the
treat lure. So she went out, she felt the least pressure and that made her
want to come back and not be on a tight leash. Basically your teaching the dog
when they feel the tight leash, they should come near you to loosen the
leash. Now if you keep proofing this game your dog is going to generalize it so
you can use different types of food, different types of toys, different types
of people and dogs and places to sniff, like a fire hydrant, you're going to
teach your dog when they see things they want the only way to get there is on a
loose leash. Hey pup pups? So I'm going to move the distraction over here and do the game again.
So pressure on leash, click and feed. What you're not doing is jerking your
dog. You're holding the leash against your body to move your dog. Good job. And
be careful that you don't back up and trip on something because that happens to me a lot. Especially in public. Step 4
Practice with different distractions in different situations.
I suggest playing this game for 1 to 2 minutes 10 to 12 times in the first few
weeks that you on your new puppy or dog. This is Martina's Border Collie Lumos at
6 months and you can see he has a positive emotional response when he
feels the pressure on the leash and he knows what to do when he feels the
pressure. If you notice your dog starts to pull again it's a great idea to go
back and do brush up training sessions.
Here's an example of working on the leash pressure game with a high level
distraction. If something is too much for your dog you'll notice that they won't
be able to turn away from the distraction. So if this happens you need
to make the distraction less exciting or move further away from the distraction.
If you're doing this exercise correctly, you'll find that your puppy will stop
pulling altogether. This is a good thing! If he keeps trying to go for the
distraction it means the distraction is too
difficult, to close or you need to spend more time marking and reinforcing him
for staying with you after he comes back. In real-life situations if your puppy
starts pulling on leash you can simply back up until he is on the loose leash
then wait a bit until you have made a connection with him again before walking
forward. I hope you enjoyed watching Halo as a tiny puppy and I hope you found
this video helpful for your training. If you'd like to support my work don't
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This video is dedicated to one of my #1 Kikopup Sponsors:
Lee Gordon. Because of him and other Kikopup
members, I'm able to create these videos to educate the general public on how to
train dogs without the use of physical or psychological intimidation. Thank you
to all my Kikopup members.