- It can be really difficult trying
to teach your dog to stop pulling on their leash
by watching a video on YouTube.
We have a couple of videos
on the channel specific to stopping leash-pulling
and they're getting a lot of attention.
One thing that I quickly realized is
that a lot of you aren't looking
at the problem the right way,
and if you simply change the way
you look at loose-leash walking,
you'll start giving your dog better information
and you'll start doing training with your dog
that'll actually make a difference.
Now, I thought a fun way to demonstrate this was
by treating this like a grade school science project.
So let's get this class started.
I'm Ken Steepe, and welcome back to McCann Dogs.
(guitar chord strums)
(small dog barking)
Here in our training facility
we've helped more than 90,000 dog owners
to overcome the same dog training challenges that you have.
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well-behaved four-legged family member.
It's really common for people to think
that the greatest challenge when
they're out teaching their dog
to walk on a loose leash are some of the other distractions.
All of the people and the smells
and the sights and maybe other animals
that you might encounter out on a walk,
are difficult to work through.
But what I really want you to think about,
what I want you to focus on, is how to be
that interesting thing, how to be more magnetic
to your dogs than these other things are.
I want your dog to be looking to you for the information.
There's actually a couple of really simple ways
that you can teach your dog to look
to you for that information,
how to be more magnetic for your dog,
and that's exactly what we're gonna talk
about in this video today.
I'm gonna talk about four different things
that you can use to increase your magnetism to your dogs,
to give your dog another reason
to be more attentive to you
and to not want to leave you so much.
But to give you a decent visual representation,
I went to a local crafts store
and I bought some board and I bought
all of these varying levels of magnets,
different levels of magnetism,
and I also bought a wooden plug.
And this is where we start with our dogs.
We're not magnetic at all.
We just happen to be there.
In this video I'm gonna show you a
few ways that you can be more magnetic,
those few different things that
you can use to your advantage when
you're teaching your dog to walk on a leash,
so that they want to remain with you
and not leave you for some of these
other distractions in the world.
The four different tools that I want
you to think about when you're teaching
your dog to walk on a loose leash
around all of these distractions are voice,
pace, reward, and timing.
So let's take a look at how we can apply
these in varying situations to teach
your dog to walk on a loose leash.
First things first,
we need to show our dogs how to be right.
What's the easiest way to teach
our dogs what the basics of this exercise are,
teaching our dogs that being at our side is worth something?
More importantly, we need to be more magnetic than this.
Remember, this is where we're starting at.
We don't have a lot of value to our dogs.
There's no reason for them to stay with us,
so we need to begin in an environment
where we can be successful.
Now you can see, in our little home drawing,
that there's just a couple of distractions
and I wouldn't wanna work near those.
Maybe it's another family member.
Maybe it's another pet, or whatever that thing might be.
Find an area in your home where
you can start to be successful
and go from being this to something like this,
where there's a little bit more attention.
You have a little bit more attention from your dog.
That way, you can start to work in
and around some of these other distractions.
And you can see this is a great example.
Now, even though I have a little bit
more attention from my dog,
if I go too close to that distraction,
they're still not going to be successful.
They're likely to choose that thing over me.
So really keep that in mind.
You need to build a solid foundation
and move from being this to something like this,
where you can get some more attention from your dog.
Then you're ready to increase the challenge a little bit.
Here's where things often get very frustrating for people.
Maybe you've worked in your home
and you're dog's really attentive to you.
Maybe you're even at a point where,
working around some of these distractions,
your dog won't leave you for them.
They'll stay right with you because
you are very magnetic in this situation.
The moment you step foot outside, things change.
Dogs are fairly situational
and they don't generalize well.
So when you go into a new environment,
your dog's very aware of the situational change
and you go from being even something like this,
that's relatively magnetic, back to being this,
and this is where you need to start retraining
some of those things.
The last thing you wanna do is take
that dog with very little understanding
of this skill of walking on a leash
and take them into a busy environment
like the park, for example,
that might have lots of distractions.
What you wanna do is work on that loose-leash walking
in short periods, in a not-distracting environment,
so that you go from being this to something like this,
where you have a little bit of attention from your dog
and you can move around and have great results,
have lots of success, in this situation.
But to get there, to get to a point where,
outside, your dog isn't attentive at all
to a point where they have,
maybe they're a little bit attentive to you
or they give you a little bit of attention,
you're going to have to start using those four tools,
voice, timing, reward, and pace.
Remember, our goal here is to add tools
along the way to be more of an attention-getter to your dog
so that these other distractions aren't a challenge,
so that your dog, all they can think about is you.
By simply adding great rewards you get this.
By adding rewards, pace, and your voice,
you get this kind of attention from your dog,
and this is really how you're gonna help
them to be successful and allow you to get in those rewards,
to reinforce that great behavior, when you're out on a walk.
Your voice is a tool that you always have with you,
and by changing the pitch or the intensity of your voice
as you're walking with your dog,
your dog's naturally gonna check in with you.
You immediately become a little bit more interesting.
So use your voice to your advantage.
Next is pace.
Now, it's really common for people
to be so focused on trying to reward
their dog in the right position
or make sure that they have a loose leash
or keep an eye on what's going on around them
that they slow down.
And what actually happens is you become a
lot less interesting to your dog.
Now, all of a sudden, the sights
and the smells and the things around,
they have a lot more opportunity
to get engaged by those things.
So rather than passing quickly by a distraction,
you're going much more slowly
and your dog naturally is attracted to those things.
Now, that doesn't mean that you have
to run as you're trying to teach
your dog to walk on a loose leash,
but you do want to maintain a steady pace.
Walk like you're late for something,
that way you're going to be more interesting to your dog
and they're less likely to be distracted
by those things on the ground.
Next is reward, and reward is always a big factor
in your dog training.
Now, it doesn't have to be food,
but specifically food is a resource
that dogs all understand.
It's something that they want.
It's really nice that it's something
that they can get through you.
It's also really helpful for rewarding precision,
to precisely reward your dog in the right position.
And I know on a couple of our other videos,
people said, "Oh, my dog doesn't really like food."
We have a video on the channel
that I'll link in the description
to increase the value of food for your dog.
But by using the right reward for your dog,
if you're struggling with walking on a loose leash,
if your dog really likes to pull,
then maybe it's time to find something
that they really like.
Instead of using maybe kibble,
something that they're not that interested in,
maybe you use something like cheese,
something that they kinda like,
something that they find really attractive.
Maybe, if you're really struggling,
maybe some steak left over from
your dinner is the perfect thing
to keep your dog attentive on you.
Maybe that's the real magnetic factor
that's gonna help you to maintain some attention.
So think about what rewards you're using
as you're teaching your dog to walk on a loose leash.
Next up is timing, and timing is a critical factor
when it comes to teaching your dog
to stop pulling on a leash.
It's the difference between your dog choosing you
and your dog choosing that other distraction.
It's also the reason that
I thought magnets would be a good example to show you.
So let's talk about that.
Two things I want you to keep in mind
as we talk about how magnetic you are.
First is that you don't need to be
extremely magnetic for your dog's entire lifetime.
It's just while they begin to understand
what your expectations are, while you build value
on you rather than these other distractions.
And what you'll notice is that,
over time, by being more of an attention-getter,
more magnetic for your dog, that some of these
really challenging magnets become quite simple ones.
They become less magnetic and it allows
you to get in much closer over time
and your dog's just less interested in those other things.
The other thing I want you to keep
in mind is avoid those magnet minefields,
things like the park or busy areas.
If you have a dog who's still pulling on a leash,
you really need to isolate some of these distractions
as you're doing your training.
The last thing you want is to go somewhere that,
everywhere you turn, your dog sees
something that they find irresistible.
It's not fair to your dog and you're going
to have a much more frustrating training session.
So be sure that you're trying
to isolate some of these distractions
so that you can work on them specifically.
It'll allow you to have great timing.
The other thing it allows you to do is
to find that distance where you can be away with your dog.
You can find that distance where
your dog's obviously gonna start pulling
and work outside of that so you can be
more magnetic to them,
you can be more of an attention-getter
than whatever that thing is.
The other thing you'll find is,
by increasing your voice before you get to that zone,
allows you to get closer.
It allows you to go by that distraction
with more attention on you.
So you're slowly making that distance less and less.
You can go closer and closer
and your dog still stays with you.
That's why you want to isolate
and identify some of these distractions for your dog.
As you change some of the tools that you're using,
your voice, your reward, your pace, and your timing,
you can really start to get closer to these distractions
because your dog is much more interested in you,
and that's really the goal of this exercise.
Now, you're not always going to be
really using all your tools
to be super magnetic to your dog.
It's just not realistic.
It's gonna be exhausting for both you and the dog.
So maybe you're making your way down the sidewalk
and you see a distraction coming up.
What's important with using your timing is turning
it on before you need it,
so really being the attention-getter for your dog,
before you get to a point where they might be distracted.
So as you're making your way down,
now you start pouring on your voice,
you start rewarding them multiple times
as you get past this distraction
so it isn't really a distraction at all.
Because you're being so darn magnetic,
all your dog can think about is you.
And once you've gone by, you can just go
back to your regular rewarding every several steps
or just using your voice to maintain
some of that attention from your dog
until the next distraction comes up.
You can probably tell by the quality
of my art board that I don't get
out to the crafts store very often,
but I thought it added some layers
to what we've been teaching you here on the channel.
If you wanna add some layers to your training
to help your dog to be more successful,
then make sure you click that card beside me.
It'll help teach your dog to have
some leash respect when you're out there,
working on this skill.
Now, if this is your first time on the channel,
make sure you hit that Subscribe button.
We publish new videos every week to help you
to have a well-behaved four-legged family member.
On that note, I'm Ken.
Happy training.