The Katzke Dog Diary

What’s the biggest training mistake I ever made? Being too rough with feedback via training tools like Gentle Leader or prong collar or even just a normal leash. Eowyn and Henry and I have been working a lot with pulling during walks — or really, we’re working on the “self control, pay attention to the guy holding the leash” aspect of their behavior modification plan.

Aside: I don’t think that prong collars are bad. I walk Eowyn on one because Eowyn is what’s known as a “Reactive” dog… she has a fear/aggression response to certain stimuli. I can’t control 80 lbs of Ridgeback when she sees something that she reacts to. The key is to not over-use it! If it’s over-used, or too tight, or it’s used too strongly, then it turns into a torture device and it’s bad. Note also that I’m not a professional trainer or behaviorist — I’m simply a hobbyist and one of the reasons my dogs NEED a behavior modification plan is that I’ve made a lot of mistakes with them!

To keep the kids from pulling, we’ve started to do something that I call “dances with dogs”. It looks REALLY weird when you see someone doing it, and it takes a lot of patience for you as a handler, but in my completely unprofessional opinion is kind of a fun way to turn your every day walk into a training session.

The basic technique is to walk forward as if you’re taking off at a normally paced walk. You should NOT use a retractable leash for this purpose — I use a leash with a knot tied at the three foot mark. When you stop, your dog should stop with you. If they don’t, they get a ‘jerk’ as they hit the end of the leash. If you’re using a prong or pinch collar, they activate it. If you’re using a haltie, they get jerked around to face you. If you’re using a normal collar, they just get uncomfortable pressure on the front of their neck as a correction.

The next step is to walk backwards until your dog comes back to join you. Once they’re walking with you again, you can proceed forward again. Repeat as necessary — the goal is to have your dog follow YOUR movements, not to rush ahead or lag behind you. Try to work to the point where they’re looking at you. If your dog takes off after a car, bicycle, ball, cat, etc. — stop, walk backwards (or away from what they’re looking at), and don’t go forward again until your dog is paying attention to YOU.

You don’t need to issue any verbal correction at all… just teach them that you will go with them to where they want to go, or you will continue walking on your own path, and THEY need to stay with you.

With Henry, it was easy to figure out how to correct him. He “got the clue” and picked up leash manners easily. With Eowyn, it was a daily struggle. She has always walked right at the edge of the limit and ended up getting a LOT of corrections… to the point of overuse. After some experimentation, I figured out that she’d make the connection between me stopping and the correction if I let her hit the correction more gently. Instead of delivering a ‘jerk’ with the prong collar, after I’ve stopped I let my arm go out towards her with the tension increasing sloooowly until she finally hits the end and stops. It was like watching a lightbulb go on when she finally realized that the pressure increasing meant I was stopping… and she could avoid the correction if she stopped faster! When I praised her for stopping faster and looking at me, she realized that she could avoid correction at all if she just watched me!

Pretty soon after figuring out that she’d make the connection if I was more gentle, I could walk forward a step, and stop, and she’d keep her head pointed at me no matter where I was walking. I could step forward, and back, and foward, and to the side, and forward … and she and Henry would follow me every step of the way!

Now, we start out all of our walks like that. I rarely have to correct them — no more pulling on the leash unless they see another dog or they see a kid on a bike. Those are Eo’s two bugaboos … and we’re working on them with a different strategy.