Puppy keeps pulling on lead - help!

legalmillie

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has any tips on how to stop your dog pulling on it's lead. We have two girl cocker spaniels, 7 months old. One is perfect on the lead the other is a nightmare. She's a lot stronger and she pulls all the time.

Any tips on how to stop her from pulling would be really appreciated.

Thanks,

Millie

Call me Socket

What do you do when she pulls? Have you brought her out alone for lead training?

mymo

We had a cocker as kids, he pulled like crazy at first. Dad resorted to small bag of dried food in pocket, rustle the bag as walking to get his attention and when dog starts to walk beside you praise it and give it a bit of food.
Cockers usually love their food so worth a try.

Beth

I posted this aaages ago here on this thread.. Might help.

Beth wrote: »

A lot of people confuse lack of leadership and trust, with a dog trying to exert dominance over them. There are very few truly dominant dogs.

There's a couple of different ways of humanely teaching a dog to walk on a loose lead. Here's a few suggestions.

1: The easiest way to teach a dog to loose-leash walk is by making it associate that when next to you, great things happen, and that away from you those same things wont happen, until they return. That works for loose leash walking and for teaching recall.

Whatever treats she really goes mad for, use them to teach her how to walk on the lead. Keep those treats for that time only - it could be chicken, cooked liver, or shop bought treats. Or you can use a favourite toy, squeaky or otherwise.

Hold the treat between your thumb and forefinger right at the seam of your pants. Show her that you have it and lure her to your side to start with. You will fade out the lure after a while. Take a few steps, (3-4) and as long as she is at your side where you want her to be, give her the treat. Use another treat, take a few steps, treat. You can quietly praise her when she is in the right position, but don't do it too excitable because this in turn can excite the dog and cause them to lose focus on the lesson. Practice this in your house first with no distractions, then in your back garden if you have one, still keeping away from distractions.

After a while when she has it perfect 99.9% of the time, is when you can introduce a command associated with it - i.e. heel. We use "heel" to the left of us, and "close" to the right of us for our dogs, just in case we're out walking country roads and want them between us and the ditch. It works for us, but you can use any words you feel like.

When she knows exactly what you want, and can do it, then is the time to take her to the front garden/driveway/just outside your house. There's a few distractions there but not too many. When she walks perfectly on the lead there, introduce another place with some more distractions, always keeping up the positive reinforcement. At this stage you don't need to be treating her every few steps, but can go longer because she knows the rules of what she should be doing. You should also not be luring her into position at this stage.

Take her to the park, a forest, within earshot and sight of a playground with kids so she learns to walk nicely around squealing playing kids (You don't need to be too close), take her along paths that has traffic running alongside(but not too close) so she will learn that cars are an everyday occurrance and nothing to be frightened of, and that she still should be walking on a lead properly. Take her to as many different places as possible -just because she knows how to walk properly on a lead in the garden, doesnt mean she knows how to walk properly on a lead in other areas. Its just like teaching a sit in many different rooms, gardens, parks etc.

2: You can also teach the "watch me" command before you try the lead. Hold a piece of food/treat in your hand. Let her see it. Then she will look at your hand waiting for it - but do not give it to her until she makes eye contact. When she does, give her the treat while quietly praising her. After many many repetitions, introduce the "watch me" command. Teach this in many rooms, in many places, and you can use it while out walking teaching her to walk properly on the lead. She cant obey "watch me" while she's pulling ahead like a steam train. And if she pulls ahead, you're too late with the "watch me" command. You should be aware of both your surroundings and your dog, and be able to judge when she is beginning to lose focus. That is then when you tell her "watch me".


3: If she doesnt believe you are the leader, provider and that all things to do with survival come from you, she can pull ahead. There has to be a leader, and if you're not it, she will assume the role. Assuming the role means leading the "hunt" - the every day walk to you and me. So in other areas besides walking, she needs to see that you will protect her from harm, and make the right decisions for the family. If you do not show her that you are the leader in other areas, she wont believe or trust that you are the leader on the walk.

To "lead" her on the walk, the minute she starts pulling ahead, you can do one of two things. Either stop dead in your tracks - which tells her that you are not going anywhere until she is behaving, but you must make sure she knows the rules and that she is to be beside you. Or you can do an about turn and head the other direction, which has her end up behind you. When she has her shoulder level with your leg, quietly praise her and if you're using treats, then give her a treat when she is in the right positon. As soon as she starts pulling ahead, turn around again. Keep doing this until she accepts that this is your walk, you lead it, and it will stop unless she walks with you.

It might take you days to get out the driveway and might take weeks to get to the end of the block, and your neighbours might think you're a little tapped, but really in the end when you have a well trained dog who is a pleasure to walk with, will it really matter that they thought it for a few days. Well trained dogs are welcomed in the community. Badly behaved and bad mannered dogs arent so not only will it make walks a nicer experience for both you and your dog, it will be a nice experience for the community to see that there is a responsible owner around training their dog.

For your dog to believe you are the leader, that you control the home environment, will protect her and make decisions, and all the things to do with survival, you must have her trust. Tapping her on the nose or any sort of physical punishment is abuse and will break any trust she has in you. Dogs taught the old way have learned and been trained, not because of it but in spite of it.

Dogs are intelligent animals and once they are taught the rules, they learn quickly for the most part. If a dog trusts you to do the best for it, they will look up to you and respect you. You dog will want to do anything to please you, if they respect you. If they don't respect you and fear you, they will usually only perform a behaviour by force or through fear, in the hopes that they will not get punished again so will try to jump the gun and offer a behaviour before the punishment arrives - sometimes its the right behaviour, sometimes it's not, its all guesswork to the dog. A dog that fears its owner or handler will not see that being next to them is the best place in the world, and will also not come back when working on recall. You want your dog to associate that being with you is the greatest thing on earth, not somewhere where she'll get hurt, feel pain, or where the fun ends. Physially punishing a dog can break the dogs trust in you as their protector/owner/handler. After that trust is broken it can take a long long time for the dogs trust to be gained again, if ever. Don't break any bit of good bond you have with your dog by punishing her with a tap on the nose or anywhere on the body.

Thats not to say you cannot correct your dog ever. A verbal command of "No" in a firm voice is usually enough. If you're looking for more formal obedience training, then sometimes a physical correction comes into play. It is nothing barbaric - just a flick of the wrist to tighten the lead to say "hey pay attention" or when your dog knows the behaviour and blatantly ignores it, the flick of the wrist to tighten the lead is usually enough. There really is no need for this in basic obedience, it is more for competitive obedience.

I would also suggest you take her to training classes. Usually an 8-10 week course, once a week for under 100 euro. There's classes run all over the country. It should really not be seen as a last resort - more like the first appointment you make after your puppy gets all their shots. There you'll learn the correct way to train your dog for different behaviours, you'll be socialising her with different people and most importantly with different dogs. Socialising her with different dogs is very important after her experience with the barking fence patroller. She could grow up to think that all dogs are like that and any sighting of any dog could trigger her defense drive. Training classes are fun for both you and the dog, and will have her see that other dogs usually equals lots of fun!

<snip>

There are many ways to train a dog without resorting to breaking their trust and introducing physical punishment. What works for one dog, may not necessarily work for another. This is why there are different ways to teach different things. The majority are kind ways. Your hands should be your dogs friend, not something they fear.

You could also look into clicker training - using a clicker to mark the appropriate behaviour i.e. by your side, and to mark other behaviours you are trying to teach. There's plenty about it on the internet, use Google or whatever search engine of your preference to find out more. There's also plenty of videos on YouTube about how to clicker train a dog.

The three best tools for training a dog and gaining their trust are 1: a kind voice, 2: a kind hand, and 3: patience.

Your hands should be your dogs friends, not a weapon to be used against them like sticks. Sticks are for fetching, not for hitting.

legalmillie

:)Thank you all for your replies. I've tried bringing her out on her own but she still pulls. She's just so excited. I'll try your tips though with the food and see if I can train her not to pull. The other one is fine, she loves being beside you.

Thanks again.

Kieo

you have to watch the dog whisperer on sky, he gives brilliant tips especially how to make the dog walk beside you. Hasn't worked for me yet but im still trying, big german shepherd kinda overpowers me lol. best of luck!

Crazyivan 1979

Dog whisperer tips for walking really helped me, he now walks besid me not a bother.

Wrapping the lead around my hand, so only 1.5 - 2 ft length and if he trys to stray or pull give him a short snap of the lead to distract him then reward him after he stays beside you for a while.

spurscormac

I have a year old Cocker that also pulls on the lead continously. Have read the food training and am going to try it out.

He's clever, cos he's learned loads of other tricks, just sometimes has a mind of his own.

Its infuriating at times, but I suppose you have to try and train your mind to think as a dog would - so many natural human reactions end up teaching him bad habits.

I read elsewhere that you should start the lead training from a very early age - so that the puppy's natural tendency to follow you at a few weeks old becomes their normal behaviour. If only I had read that piece 10 months ago, things could have been much easier.