Loose Leash Walking. Part 4. Proofing

In our last post on Loose Leash Walking, we talked about starting indoors with no equipment.  In other words, we set our dogs up for success by proofing the behavior we want.


So we start in the most boring room in the house, move to the next most boring room, then a more exciting room then the back yard (if you have one) then the driveway (if you have one). When you are ready for the sidewalk, try it first at 5:00 AM or whenever there’s nothing exciting out and slowly work your way up.

I followed the above steps with Puddin. But as soon as we left our driveway, she would get too stimulated by the environment.  Going from the driveway to the sidewalk was too big of a leap for her. I needed a places that was more exciting than my driveway but less exciting than the sidewalk.



I finally found that a large empty parking lot was the missing link that we needed. So I got the behavior I wanted the house, then the yard, then an empty parking lot, then went back to the sidewalk, and she was much better.

I videoed our second visit to the missing like parking lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR4KX_An5jk

Once we went back to the sidewalk, we had to keep our walks super short in the beginning – no more than 5 minutes. Then slowly increase the time. If we stayed out too long, she would get over stimulated and start pulling.


See more on Loose Leash Walking here
And here 

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