Where does a pleasant dog walk begin?
Help. My dog is behaving erratic during walks. One area of problems that several people have mentioned to me over the last weeks, is how their dog behaves when it comes to walks. This ranges from pulling on the leash, being reactive towards prey like birds, other dogs, other people, driving cars, jumping up, biting the leash etc. All these issues are not just unpleasant to deal with, for your dog as well as for you, but can also be safety hazards. You deserve to have a relaxed time with your dog. And your dog deserves exercise. So how can we get there?
It all starts before you even step outside. What we can not stress out enough, is that the walk does not begin once you stepped foot outside. It starts with how you interact with your dog at home. And how your interaction at home looks like, will shape the behaviour your dog exhibits during the walk.
“Walking your dog starts before you leave the house.”
Circle of problems. Your dog misbehaving during walks can lead to a full circle of problems: If your dog is not exercised properly, any unpleasant behaviour will only multiply due to pent up energy. This will make walks even more unpleasant, which in return can lead to you reducing the time of exercise. I assume you can see where this is going. (On top of that, you might be living in an area where long walks are physically impossible due to extremely cold weather. Don’t worry, I hear you on this one. It is a struggle.) So, how can we make sure, that we embark on a journey to pleasant dog walks? Let’s begin by describing one particular “Getting ready to leave the house” scenario that we have often come across:
It’s time for walkies. You are getting up and since you know that your dog loves the walkies, you are ready to let your dog know what’s coming and to get excited. With your most excited voice, you are calling your dog over, announcing what is about to happen. Your dog is all up for it and will match the excitement with barking, whining, jumping, zoomies, whatever your dog does when it gets excited. Maybe this was you at the beginning, when your dog just moved in with you, or when your dog was still a puppy. These days, it’s enough for your dog to hear the sound of the leash and IT IS ON. And don’t get me wrong here, our dogs know too. They know before I even go to get the equipment. The important thing is, how you react to it and what happens next!
The excitement is real. Back to our scenario. You put on the leash, and you are all ready to walk. Your dog is so excited, as soon as the door opens, your dog storms out the door. However, you are now expecting your dog to walk nicely next to you as soon as you are out of the door. Polite, pleasant, ideally walking next to you. But your dog has a very different idea in mind. Your dog pulls, keeps barking at everything that moves. If any of this resonates, say aye.
The only time you would want your dog to pull. Now, a pulling dog is fantastic if you are a dog sledder. Believe me, from my own experience, if your sled dog is not pulling, you are going to be in for a very rough day. However, trying to walk a dog in the winter, on a slippery day, that is pulling in all kinds of directions? Less desirable.
Train how to walk heel. A lot of you might have looked up ways to train your dog to stop pulling the leash. That is great and will definitely come in handy in the future. (Often, people are heading straight to trying to get their dog to walk heel versus walking relaxed on a loose leash. There is an important difference, which we will cover in another post.) There might be a chance though, that you are feeling like you have to start all over again, every day, and success is very short lasted to non existent. And the very reason is: WALKING YOUR DOG STARTS BEFORE LEAVING THE HOUSE. If you try to get your dog to listen to you, work with you, pay attention, while you are on a walk, with all these smells, sights, distractions, you are setting your dog up to fail. Imagine taking your kids on a 12 hours car drive to Disney Land or the Arcades, and as soon as you arrive, you let the kids out of the car and demand that they stand still and listen to you trying to teach them algebra for about an hour, in the middle of Disney Land. Can you imagine how this would go down?
“We can manage our dogs energy level, before we leave the house.”
No quick fix. Unfortunately, there is no simple, quick solution to turn this behaviour around. If your dog pulls, lunges, jumps, there are many turning wheels that need to be worked on and the process can take time, even up to months, depending on how strong your dogs current behaviour is. But if you do not commit to changing now, nothing will ever change. And neither you, nor your dog, deserve for walks to be anything but a bliss. Just a human and their best friend, casually strolling through the woods, breathing in the fresh air and enjoying each others company. A team, working together.
So what can we change right now, to start creating long lasting change? We can manage our dogs energy, before we even step out of the door. As I said, what we can not offer you, is a solution that solves all your problems straight away. We are dog trainers. Not magicians. Unfortunately. Even though a lot of what we do feels like magic to us every day. What we can offer right here, right now, is to support you to set you and your four legged companion on a new path of being.
Commit to change right now. All you need to bring to the table, are PATIENCE and OBSERVATION/TIMING. The next time you are getting your dog ready to go for a walk, commit to not leaving the house, until your dog is in a calm state. If you have the chance to let your dog get rid of some energy before, that will help. Let him out into the backyard and run it out, play fetch or tug-o-war, whatever you can offer up front will help at this stage. After the energetic activity, give your dog a few minutes to calm down. Wait until your dog lies down and rests. This is a great moment to practise:
Getting your dog ready for the walk
Now, ideally, you do not start practising this new approach to a walk when your dog has a ton of pent up energy. This will only put your dog under stress. And a stressed dog can’t learn. Start with this new routine on a day, where you already clocked in a good amount of exercise and your dog had some rest and is mentally fresh.
Call your dog over to put on the leash.
If your dog comes over before you call, and jumps, whines, goes for the door, etc. turn your back towards your dog and ignore your dog until your dog calms down. This can happen in the form of walking away and lying down again, sitting calm and looking at you,
The key point here is: Your dog sees the walk as a reward and you want to reward the dog for good behaviour, not for unwanted behaviour. If you give in and walk your dog, because the jumping for example gets too annoying, you are instantly rewarding your dog for exactly this behaviour and I can guarantee you, your dog will remember this and keep using the jumps to get what he wants.
You need to commit here! If you want to see changes in behaviour, you need to commit to not leaving the house until your dog is in a calm state. If you leave the house with a dog in an excited state, you will get a dog walking in an excited state = jumping, lunging, barking, pulling.
Your dog might get frustrated, because the usual behaviour does not bring the wanted results, and become even more erratic. Be strong now. Wait until your dog changes its state of mind. What we want to see is a dog that looks relaxed, calm, attentive. Eventually, your dog will look at you and wonder, what it is you want from him. And this is exactly what we want. This is where you can say, good boy/ yes/ good relax (whatever it is you decide on), give your dog a treat, and put on the leash. Take off the leash again and release your dog by saying ok and walking away. I recommend repeating this exercise 2-3 times. You will observe, that the time until your dog switches state will eventually become shorter and shorter. Don’t forget to reward your dog every time as soon as the mindset changes.
Now, there is a chance that the second the leash is on, your dog will go into a frantic state again. All you have to do, is repeat the previous steps and wait, until your dog changes state. Remember, you need to commit to not walk out of the door, until your dog is calm and relaxed. If your dog stays in his calm, relaxed state and is still focusing on you, that is absolutely amazing and please, reward your dog with a walk for this. Your dog deserves it.
We know that this exercise can be frustrating. If you can feel yourself getting impatient, anxious, tense, stressed, remember that your dog can pick up on this. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and see if this can calm your system. If not, step away from the exercise until you are in a better state again. This will support you becoming the dog leader you have the potential of becoming.
We hope that we were able to provide you with some helpful information, and embarking on a new journey with your dog when it comes to walks. As I mentioned before, there are many turning wheels that are involved in training a dog to behave wonderfully while being out for walks. Managing the energy before leaving the house is just one of them, but in our opinion, it is an essential one that sets the tone for all work with your dog. Working on all aspects is important and will contribute to your overall success with working with your dog.
If you have tried changing your routine before taking your dog out, we would love to hear from you. How did it go? How did your dog react to your changed behaviour? What difference has it made to your life with your dog? Get in touch! Send us a message, leave a comment, or even send us videos and/or photos, we love hearing from you all. Your KO K-9 Adventures Team.
mail@ko.k9.adventures.com
