Leash Step, featuring Chip

Meet Chip!

Chip is a 2 year old doxie mix who is tremendously cute and showered with love in his home. However, he is also fearful, particularly with children and joggers on walks. Chip’s owners adopted him when he was 9 months old, and soon realized that his fear barking and nipping was trouble.  Chip was in need of some Zen Dog Training! 

Teaching Chip there is nothing to be afraid of when strangers pass by during walks is a great method to preventing aggression. We started the training plan by making sure to be extra aware of our surroundings. We don't want to get caught off guard by someone and end up with a scared, barking and lunging dog.

We made sure his owners weren't making things worse by trying to correct a scared dog or holding the leash too tightly. Leash tension can translate into feeling of nervousness. The dog might think, "My owner is nervous -- could it be that person running by? Maybe I should be on guard!" Nervousness can turn to fear, and if not addressed turn into aggression.

A method we use when stopping to talk with a friend on the street, is Leash Step, stepping on the leash while keeping no tension on your dog’s neck. The reason this is better than just simply holding the leash is because your tight grip might cause tension on the leash.

A Leash Step will not create tension yet it can quickly help stop a dog from lunging at any people passing by, which, in Chip's case can mean the difference between preventing a bite or an injured, angry jogger!

Use leash step when waiting to cross the street or in the elevator to prevent your dog from jumping up or running into traffic. However, it is important to never leash step in a way that traps a scared dog. Allow uncertain dogs to hide behind your legs or make distance between himself and a scary person, place, thing or other dog.
  Management and prevention are key in quickly solving these kinds of problem behaviors. For more information on Leash Step and Shy / Fearful Dogs, visit Zen Dog Training Online.

How to Hold the Leash During Walks, featuring Penny

Meet Penny!

Penny is as sweet as they come. She is a gentle, lovable, cuddly 8 year old chocolate lab with owners who give her all that love right back. It wasn’t until they moved to the city, that they realized Penny had a problem. She pulled hard on walks. In fact, she pulled so hard, she even knocked her owner to the ground! 

In a case like this, we teach a solution called My Walk; a game designed to show Penny she must listen to the rules of the person holding the leash. The game is pretty easy to learn, anytime Penny pulls on the leash, the walk stops. Doing this teaching teaches Penny that she doesn't lead us on walks. It's "my walk" and she doesn't get what she wants by pulling.  

Learning how to handle and hold the leash on walks is the foundation.  It is especially important to hold the leash correctly considering Penny's past history with dangerously pulling so hard.

In order to prevent falling over, we hold the leash with both hands and stand with our feet shoulder width apart and knees slightly bent. The idea is to use our center of gravity (our core) for strength. When we stop, we take a grounded stance, essentially, instead of using your arms, stopping the force of the pull with your entire body. 

Additionally, if we hold the leash with both hands and rest our arms on our body, we can depend less on our shoulders and more on having good balance and a strong foundation when she starts to pull.

It takes practice but if you are conistent she'll learn who’s walk it really is: it's your walk - not her's! 
 

For a complete explaination on  How to Hold the Leash and My Walk, including how to interrupt unwanted behaviors and how to walk a dog who doesn't want to walk - please visit Zen Dog Training Online.

Bringing Treats on Walks, featuring Chance

Meet Chance!

Chance is an alert 2 year old cattle dog mix who just loves his owners, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to take control during walks. Chance gets a lot of his exercise off-leash at a local park but tends to not pay attention and disappears when he gets the chance! We needed to teach him that it pays to stay close to his owners off-leash, that's why Chance’s owners must bring treats on walks.

Bringing a variety of different value treats on walks will teach Chance that it literally pays to listen! Practicing calling his name and surprising him with an extremely high value treat when he comes will teach him to be on high alert when someone calls his name.

There are a few tricks to remember. Most importantly, you have to actually remember to bring the treats with you! It's also great if you bring 2-3 different kinds of treats in your treat bag so you can reward better actions with higher value treats. This way you can keep it interesting and save the higher-value treats for rewarding really good behaviors.

Food is the dog equivalent of money to humans. Would you go to work if you were not going to get paid?! If you won the lottery and had a huge weekly paycheck would you even work at all? Teaching your dog that good things happen when he listens to you will help him understand that it pays to listen! 

For more information on Treats on Walks and Treat Bags, visit Zen Dog Training Online.

My Walk!

Meet Gunner!

Picture a massive ninety pound ball of energy and affection, then put it on stilts... now you have Gunner. This exceptionally handsome Pitbull/Great Dane cross was the one calling the shots in his household. Now think about this: Gunner's owner is a lovely woman who is absolutely no match for his strength.

The fact that Gunner is part Pitbull unfortunately means that he and his owner may fall victim to discrimination from ignorant and fearful people. Because of this Gunner will be expected to uphold a greater level of obedience and manners. To add to the dynamic of his situation, Gunner's owner has brothers that like to rough-house with him. Fortunately Gunner's owner was keen to recognize that changes needed to be made before Gunner's conduct got out of hand.

It was plain to us trainers that most of Gunner's delinquencies were predominantly juvenile responses. He would, with proper adjustments, grow out of these behaviors. The first suggestion was to modify the rough-housing to structured games of Tug of War. By enacting specific rules and maintain consistency, Gunner's relatives could still play with him but without the effect of riling him up. Another solution that helped Gunner's owner gain more control during walks was the Red Light Green Light exercise. This taught Gunner that he was not in-charge and in fact he would have to look to his owner for approval.

For more information on Zen Dog games like Tug of War and Red Light, Green Light visit Zen Dog Training Online.