How To Stop Your Dog PULLING On The Leash

so got a fun case today i haven't done one of these for a little while if you've been following the journey you know that i tend to do all my in-person behavior modification work is done with the death row police cases on a volunteer basis at the shelters but this was for a friend we've got a beautiful golden retriever called sandy sandy yeah good boy good boy wonderful temperament very happy-go-lucky lovely dog butt is one of the worst pullers we've ever seen and has made for its owners who's a friend of a friend so i said i'd help them out it's become a miserable experience for them they've got young kids their cycle has begun where they are finding it very difficult to walk it so it's not getting as much exercise or the behavior start to slip in so my goal of today it's a very straightforward case for me bread and butter i miss doing these quite straightforward ones is to go from a extremely bad puller through to beautiful heel walking and i'm hoping we can do that in about 30 minutes it'll be a really lovely thing to do for them so classic case not a bad dog not an aggressive dog not a reactive dog just a dog with no engagement so the foundation of what we need to start with is just simply building engagement now as you can see even just me moving around here sandy's not engaged with me at all he's doing his own thing he's looking where he's going it's not a bad thing it doesn't come from any kind of problems like i say aggression the dominance reactive it's just no engagement so all we're going to do is we're going to start with a tune-up i've brought him out on the training lead to start with just to kind of get a feel for him and i think all we're going to have to do is we're going to swap out to my trusty slip lead and we're just going to do some directional changes start to build up that engagement once i get that engagement we're 75 of the way then we'll tune it up turn it into a heel with a bit of free shaping and hopefully in 30 minutes or so we'll give this dog back beautifully he'll train with stunning engagement right so all we're going to do is we've got the slip lead nice and high on his neck and what we're going to do is start just doing some directional changes so i'm not looking for any heel yet but as he goes sandy let's go sandy let's go good sandy let's go yes good straight away sandy let's go good boy sandy let's go good sandy let's go yes good boy that one i'm going to lavish with praise so we're going to go back and talk about that one again i'm not bothered about this we're going to deal with all this later what i'm looking for is when i mark it with that sandy let's go and i turn is that he's engaged with me and comes if he doesn't engage with me and ignores my command and he's off in the distance somewhere else a little bit of lead pressure from the slip lead is going to inherently correct that for me and it's going to make him just snap him out i think oh yep this way next time sandy let's go is going to mark that behavior oh we're going this way that's how we build that engagement it really isn't rocket science it's just a little bit of finesse at the right time of when you apply that lead pressure so i'll show you that again let's go sandy let's go oh yes good boy let's go oh good boy let's go yes good so already you can clock this he's starting to engage with me already because he's waiting for me to make my movement sandy let's go yes that could be a little bit better so he's still doing his own thing but we're at that 50 where he's checking back to me now so we're starting to build engagement sandy let's go oh good boy yes oh good boy and you'll notice at this point i'm not using any food work look at the difference already from a little bit of engagement sandy let's go oh good boy we're already at a one finger walk this we can tune up let's go oh good boy yes vocal inflection no food works i don't want to bribe that behavior i want that behavior to come from legitimate relationship and engagement with me later on i'm going to bring in food reward i'm going to lavish it with food reward when we're really dialing in the heel work but for now engagement shouldn't be a bribery a result of bribery it should be a result of relationship and communication so as you can see we've swapped out to one of our prototype products that we're working on which is a a long line slip lead the reason i've done this is because as you already saw making huge levels of progress with engagement but within being so energetic so boisterous so lively he is naturally reaching the end of the slip lead very quickly which isn't giving me a lot of time to get my timing and finesse for those directional changes in swapping out to a long line as you'll see in a minute will give me a little bit more time to let him go out for me to make my directional turn and give him the opportunity to engage with me and come if he doesn't then he gets a little bit of lead pressure to redirect him and build that engagement so we're just going to drill that now i'll have joe film it for a little while so i'm going to let him have a bit of space sandy let's go yes good boy what a good boy what a good boy again i'm not after any kind of heel work yet he doesn't know what the term heal means he's never been taught it so to expect that from him would be completely unfair and to correct him would just be cruel but what i want to do now is again sandy let's go now he ignored me a little bit of lead pressure good boy yes oh thank you again we're in this together good boy this i don't mind we'll deal with this afterwards it's all about engagement we swap back to the short lead and we're getting that engagement really nicely sandy sit oh yes thank you good boy and i'm just always looking for this eye contact again happy dog relaxed demeanor and now what we've started to do again direction changes but now we swap back to a short lead is that we started to three shape that behavior to the left now what you're about to see is the power of engagement in this level of free shaping again i don't mind this that's a problem for another day because what you're about to see is how let's go so again demeanor i'm in charge of this walk and that level of engagement changes massively so if you've that you'll see these subtle changes in his head movement where he's going to just quickly check to me and see everything's okay sandy let's go oh yes good boy and he's responsive sandy yes so again that was beautiful i was hoping that would happen so you saw that all the minimal amount of lead pressure with a finger is required just to bring him back into position when he's in this position happy go lucky tail wagging looking up to me let's go good boy thank you good boy bit distracted by the camera man this is another opportunity sandy we just bring him back in again we're talking literally a finger worth of lead pressure this isn't a dog that's being abused this isn't a dog that's in pain this is finally a dog with the weight of his world off his shoulders because somebody stepped in and taken control of this walk so as you can see now shoulders back head up literally walking in with a finger i'm sure the cameraman can see that and he's happy because we're now working together rather than separately and him having to make his own decisions and not used any commands other than let's go good boy if he goes too far ahead a little bit of lead pressure just to remind him bring him back in now the reason this works so well and i didn't have to jump to extreme levels of correction or corrective tools is because of that engagement because it became responsive through the conditioning work that we did during the directional changes drill so it might seem silly that you're going back and forward the outcome of that drill is to build engagement we built enough engagement now around distractions in a farm environment where with the tiniest bit of lead pressure it can bring him back to me bring that attention back and have him looking now again this is a dog that's how old is he joe i think he's three three years old and in 20 minutes his life has been transformed through a little bit of leadership guidance and direction now we just need to layer on that build on that what i would like to see now is more eye contact i'm not going to correct him for it because he doesn't understand but i'm going to appreciate that behavior over time if when he naturally gives it to me he's going to get rewarded or i can lure it oh goodbye yes thank you so the little noise he got his attention he looked up to me then we praise and reinforce that behavior what that starts to build up in his mind especially an incredibly intelligent mind like you aren't you is that oh when i make eye contact he's nice to me i could have food rewarded that if i want to i don't think he needs it same principle again boy yes good good boy he'll start to very quickly learn that looking up to me for guidance and direction making eye contact to me brings in positive things i will start doing that more i'll start praising and reinforcing it more that display of behavior will increase and that engagement then increases over time but what we've done is we've shaped new behavior that now through practice and repetition when we hand it back to the owner will become second nature the way that for the last three years pulling and not looking for any guidance and direction has become second nature and again we now have a well-mannered calm relaxed if you can go back to the start of the video and look at the energy level differences it's these things that mean more to me when i talk about the weight of the world comes off a dog's shoulder when you step in and take the steering wheel that's what you see in here calm relax rather than giddy jump it's not necessarily hyperactive or playful oftentimes it stems from anxiety or fear so we've got a beautiful example here what a lovely distraction somebody's just rocked up to the farm we're now going to do this again look at different straight away attention has been broken but i need to bring this back to me oh good boy thank you good boy let him know that when you look up to me everything's okay and we're going to just write so he's distracted by this sandy let's go look at that beautiful okay boss where are we going one finger walking shoulders back chest up i'm in charge of this i'm not asking you to not look at that car i looked at the car something new is here who's that why are we doing it but i've said it's time to go so we go i say let's go oh good boy thank you and i'm leading this we're walking this let's go oh good boy thank you good boy again a little bit of lead pressure brings him back in good boy put in the space for 20 minutes just through i can't stress it enough focusing on leadership engagement and relationship has transformed this dog's life and i want him to be a dog i want him to be happy that was work time sandy sit oh good boy thank you i've asked for that from you now break and off you go good boy go and be a free dog go and have the world is it your oyster yes and we can play but now when it's time for me to bring that back up sandy let's go and it's work time again let's go good sandy sit sit oh good boy yes sandy break and now it's time to play and be a dog you

Channel: Will Atherton Canine Training

Views: 4,620,821

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Id: DU1Kz7NWrWc

Length: 11min 56sec (716 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 03 2021