Teaching your dog to walk is very simple if you know how to do it. Surely you have seen dozens of dogs walking along the street with their owners, many of them walking correctly and some others…. walking very, very bad. Walking with a dog that does not know how to walk can be a nuisance; jerks, overtaking, tension in the strap and endless problems that can turn a beautiful ride into an odyssey.
Whether your dog is an adult or a puppy, you should teach him to walk with you. Dogs do not know if they do it wrong or well, they just walk and it is their owners who must tell them if they do it right or wrong, correct or congratulate them. Most behavior problems on dog walks are due to poor communication between the owner and the dog, not a rude dog.
If your dog is a puppy you should vaccinate him before going outside with him, get him used to wearing the necklace all day. When he is a little older he is used to it, you can take it off at home or whenever you want … but while it is a puppy it is recommended that you always wear it, get used to it and don’t see it as a problem in your neck. Remember that puppies grow quickly, watch that the collar is never tight (you should be able to put a pair of fingers between the leash and the puppy’s neck without problem).
We are going to learn how to teach our dog or puppy to walk with us, without jerking or startling. Take a quiet walk with your dog, it’s something really simple it just takes a little practice and patience. Forget all the techniques you have learned so far and put these into practice, you will see how in a short time you get good results.
Index of contents
- 1 Exhausting their energies
- 2 Choose an appropriate training place
- 3 Grooming the dog…. and the owner
- 4 Starting to walk
- 5 Teach your dog or puppy to walk
- 5.1 Practical tips
Exhausting their energies
When a puppy or adult dog goes outside, the first thing he wants to do is run, play, urinate, greet other dogs…. This is completely normal, that’s why when they leave the house they are so energetic, full of vitality and eager to play.
The first thing we must do before starting to teach our dog any task such as walking, lying down, bringing objects, etc … is to let it vent. Eliminating your extra energy we will have a much more submissive dog and ready to learn Therefore, the first thing we must do is let it release energy.
It is recommended to take it to a dog park or place where you can run freely, play, sniff … in short, a place where you can let off steam and get tired. You don’t have to be in a hurry to tire him out, you don’t have to throw a stick 200 times to make him run out…. you have to let it do it naturally, so we must have between half an hour and an hour so that they can enjoy exclusively.
Once the dog has met its needs, played, sniffed and let off steam… .. we can start teaching it. Remembering that to have an energetic and happy dog We must feed it with a high quality dog food.
Choose an appropriate training place
To teach our dog to walk, we must choose a quiet place, where it cannot be easily distracted and where it does not receive many stimuli (when it has learned the base, we can practice in places with more stimuli). A good place to walk can be a park with little traffic, a country road, etc…. If our dog is learning in a place where he sees other dogs playing, children screaming, bouncing balls, etc … he will not learn anything, because he will be more attentive to these stimuli than to their owner.
Grooming the dog…. and the owner
To start teaching our dog or puppy to walk, it is necessary to be completely relaxed. Humans transmit our problems indirectly to our dogs, so that an owner is tense or stressed, the dog will notice that tension and will not be calm. To teach our dog to walk, we must be calm and in a good mood, unhurried and eager to teach.
Our dog or puppy must already be used to wearing a collar, so the only thing we have left … is to put the leash on it. It is very important to use a short leash to teach our dog to walk, the extendable leashes are not valid. A one meter leash, more or less, is a good leash to teach our puppy or adult dog to walk with us.
Once our dog is tired and we have gone to a quiet area to start learning, we can only put the leash on and start the lesson.
Starting to walk
Have your dog or puppy sit down, put the leash on it, stand next to it and start walking. Do it at a medium pace, neither too slowly nor too fast. It is very important that the strap goes without tension, there should be something hanging in its middle, so that it does not transmit any tension, it is not taut.
If your dog or puppy comes forward, when you notice tension on the leash, it stops dead. When he turns around and approaches you (the strap is no longer taut) resume walking again. You must repeat this every day, so that it is engraved on your head that when it shoots, it does not advance.
If you constantly go ahead and jerk, instead of stopping dead and waiting for the leash to go tension free, you can make a 180º turn and walk in the opposite direction, repeating this same step as many times as necessary until the dog stops you. pay attention to you and when you turn it do it at the same time, with you.
Another option if the previous ones you see as impossible because it shoots with a lot of force and does not respond, is to keep in hand some dog treat (a small kibble of feed, piece of sausage, etc …) making him walk next to you. When he does, reward him and place a new prize in your hand, at two or three meters reward him again, walking without stopping, repeat the process again and reward him at five or six meters. The trick is to lengthen the time where he receives his prize, so that he walks next to you (neither in front nor jumping) and gets his prize.
Walk straight and go changing the rhythm, for a few minutes walk quickly (without letting him go ahead, stop dead if this happens and the strap is tightened) and then change to a slower pace, where you should also go with your pair, don’t get ahead.
If your dog or puppy is left behind, just walk a little slower and keep a small prize in hand so that it is next to you. When next to you, the strap sho
uld go tension-free, remember that the strap should go tension-free as a general rule.
Teach your dog or puppy to walk
Teaching our dog or puppy to walk properly is not achieved in a day, or a week, or even a month. We will be able to see progress steadily, but we will need to be patient and repeat the indicated steps on a daily basis for a considerable time.
There are dogs that learn to walk correctly in one month and others that take six months…. the important thing is not the time, but to enjoy it. Teaching our dog is not about sacrificing our time, but sharing it with him and investing in his future (and our comfort in the future).
Repeating the steps indicated in step four, as usual, we will see great progress little by little. When our dog knows how to walk more or less well, we can take walks with friends who also have dogs, so that our dog sees that other dogs also walk with him and does not feel the need to start playing. Remember to unburden it before teaching it, it is a fundamental step.
Practical tips
- Complete the indicated steps as we have described them, let your dog vent and then start classes. Never start a class with a dog full of energy, it won’t do any good.
- Avoid learning in the heat of the sun, try not to get too hot or your dog will only want to find a shade to shelter.
- Forget about choke / punishment collars, anti-jerk leashes, etc… All dogs can learn with a normal collar and a medium-sized leash.
- Your state of mind is essential, if you are not calm and have a positive aptitude, do not teach the class.
- If your dog is too upset, sit him down, lie him down and massage him. Let him relax naturally, and then class begins.
- Never let a young child from classes for you, only the owner or an experienced adult (trainer), be able to teach.
- Have a bag of patience, some dogs take several months to learn to walk properly, it is all a matter of practice and patience, there are no more tricks.
- If the situation is beyond you, if you don’t have time … go to a professional, but always, always, you must be present at the training.