I'm going to talk about loose leash walking, and I'm going to teach you how to train a very young puppy, how to walk on a leash. Now, this is important because obviously we don't want to be walking around the block with our dog ripping our arm off or we're chasing after them trying to hold on to them. Especially if we have a dog that's going to weigh, you know, up to 80+ pounds. Now, if you have a little dog, it's a different story, but still, it's embarrassing If your puppy is all over the place barking at dogs we are going by, not paying attention to you and just really doing whatever they want. So I feel like loose leash walking is a really important subject. 

Loose leash walking is something we can all train our puppies to do from a very young age. They're very capable of learning this skill. It simply has to be taught to them. The worst thing you could do at the beginning of this process would be to follow your puppy. If they pull now, think of how often you put your puppy on leash and how often they are realizing pulling works. It gets them where they want to go perhaps. Let's say you're going out to do potty trips, just walk around your house or going out to your mailbox. Any time you follow your puppy and he's pulling, you're rewarding that pull and dogs will do what serves them or whatever works best for them. So if your puppy is pulling toward a bird or pulling towards the park and a bush or whatever he wants to go check out and you follow him, then he learns that pulling works.

While we talk about this today and I give you some tips and tricks on how to do this, let's remember in the back of our minds that we never, ever follow a pulling puppy. It's just a simple rule, but it has to be followed. Whenever a puppy pulls, I simply plant my feet. I become like a tree. I plant my roots down and I don't move. I wait for my puppy to put slack back in that leash, and then we continue moving. What I'm trying to teach him is that we're a team and we move together. I always tell my clients that the leash is like an umbilical cord. It connects us, but I'm not using it to pull my puppy around. And my puppy's not using it to pull me around. It literally is a connection, and we have to learn to move as a team. 

All right, so what exactly is a loose leash walk? What does that look like to me when I have my puppy on leash? I look for a nice J shape in the leash. I want a nice loop. I don't want it to be taught or tight. I want there to be some slack that it causes a little bit of a hook almost like the Letter J. 

I also like my puppy to pay attention to me. There are several different types of walks. There's a strict heel where I want my puppy at my left heel, right by my side, and I want him looking up at me, paying attention almost every step of the way. A loose leash walk is a little bit more lax. My puppy can, you know, look around as he's going, but he checks in with me every so often, and he does stay near my side with that nice J shape in the leash. So it's not as strict as a heel where I have his attention every second, but I'm walking. It is a nice, relaxed, casual walk where we move together. We stop together and he's paying attention to what I'm doing in my body movements. 

Now, why is this important? As we're going around our neighborhoods and we're going out in public, we don't want our dog to be a nuisance. We want to be able to enjoy life with him, and the best way to enjoy life with him is to make sure that he's well mannered and a nice loose leash walk is a really important manner. If you're going to be out in public with your dog, you don't want him pulling over to sniff somebody who didn't invite him to do so. You don't want him pulling, barking or lunging at the dogs that he sees coming his direction. We're going another way. And if you're going to be going for a hike or a jog or just a walk around your neighborhood, it's really nice to be able to enjoy a walk with your dog not stressed out and you're not worried about him pulling you or you pulling him. You just really want to work together. It's more easy going and more enjoyable all the way around. So how do we do this? 

The first thing that you're going to want to do with your brand new puppy is teach them what a leash is. A lot of puppies don't come to you knowing even what a leash is and it is helpful to recognize that. What I like to do is I attach a little four foot leash and I get pretty small ones. Get a really lightweight leash. It's probably only 1/4 of an inch wide, and I just clip it to my puppies collar and they drag that thing around. Now be careful that your puppies not going up and down stairs, or off of high surfaces if you have rocks in your yard, I don't recommend this, but if you have a nice, safe, flat area, go ahead and attach the leash to your puppy and let him just wander around that area, getting used to the fact that a leash is attached to him. So you're not even picking up the leash. At this point, you might just be playing games with him or asking for obedience cues, maybe his sit, down things like that while he has a leash attached. 

Then to start the leash walk, you're simply going to pick it up, and I like to walk backwards at first, so I'm walking backwards and my puppies walking toward me, and then I'm I've got some treats in my hand and I'm almost just luring him along so the treats are valuable because it keeps your puppies attention off of the leash. I know a lot of people will say my puppy just keeps biting the leash. He just keeps grabbing onto it and shaking it around. He thinks it's a game, and so if you can get your puppy onto some food and that food is more motivating than the leash, then he will focus on the food and not on biting his leash. 

Once you've practiced in your house, walking backwards and your puppy is following along, and doesn’t mind the leash and he’s following the food lure, then you can turn around, face the same direction as your puppy, and both start walking forward together. The reason why I have you start this in your house is simply because there are a lot fewer distractions inside than there are outside. As soon as you go outside, you're going to be competing with birds, squirrels, deer, whatever is in your neighborhood. Children, bikes, scooters. You know, lots of things going on outside depends on the season, obviously, and where you live. But I start inside with my puppy so that we can get used to just walking together with a leash. The equipment is not new to him. He knows what it is. He knows how to walk with it, and then when I go outside, it's not so overwhelming. He's not only dealing with new things and surroundings, but the new equipment as well. So I try to help him get used to it inside, and then we move outside once he already knows what that leash is. 

What I recommend is taking your puppy outside and just having a goal of maybe walking 20 feet in one direction, doing a U turn and rocking 20 feet in another direction. That might even be too much for your puppy. You might only get 10 feet and then do a U turn and walk 10 feet back. Now, when I'm walking again outside, you're going to have to have a higher value food reward than you would inside so outside things might be, but he might need some hot dogs or some chicken freeze dried chicken. Maybe some pieces of roast beef. Or I use the Natural Balance dog food roll. Slice that up into little pieces the size of my pinky fingernail. That's very rewarding to dogs. I try to go for something that's yummy and more high value than obviously just his dog food because I'm outside and because we're moving and there's a lot going on around us, I really need his attention. 

Let's talk about attention for just a second while we're on that. Attention is one of the key things in puppy training. You must have his attention. He must be motivated or else the training will go nowhere. So let me give you an example. Let's say that I wanted you to mow my lawn and I said, If you mow the front mow strips of my lawn, I'll pay you five bucks. Now, the mow strips would take you probably five minutes, maybe even three minutes. They're not that big. The mow strips just that little, you know, strip in front of your sidewalk that's between the street and your sidewalk. So for five bucks you might be willing to do that, You say okay? Yeah, sure. I’ll mow your mow strips for five bucks, and then what if I say to you? Well, I live on an acre and I've got a lot of grass. I have a soccer field in my backyard, so I'm going to pay you five bucks to mow my backyard as well. Now, at that point, I guarantee even my 14 year old son would not say, Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and mow that acre of grass for you for five bucks. He's going to want a little more than that. So he's going to want a higher pay out. At that point, it might take him, you know, 20 bucks to be like Okay, yeah, that's worth it to me. I'll do it for 20 bucks. Let's say that I have a park next to me and it's a couple acres and I say, OK, Would you do that for five bucks? Absolutely not. There's no way you're going to get anybody to mow that park for five bucks. But if you say I'll pay you a $100 to go mow the park, that might be worth it. And that's what you'd have to decide. At what point is it worth it to you to mow the entire park? That's how your dog works and thinks so your dog might think, “Oh, sit, that's easy. I can do that. And I'll do that for a cheerio or, you know, down is easy, I'll do that for, you know, a piece of cheese or something.” And it depends on, you know, all the puppies are different, but I try to start out with the lowest value reward that my puppy will work for. And then I work my way up. So I have a hierarchy of treats. I know what I could get my dog to do for his kibble. I know what I can get my puppy to do for the cheerio or goldfish cracker. I know what I could get my puppy to do. You know it's going to take maybe some cheese or you know what's going to take some roast beef or some chicken. So make a higher hierarchy chart for your puppy, figure out what motivates, and you really have to know what will capture his attention. 

And before you start leash walking outside. Here's an example. I had a little puppy here at my house the past eight weeks training. Her name is Remmy. She's a little Australian Labradoodle, and I could not figure out what motivated her. Now, as a trainer, I know that that's the most important thing. You have to start with what motivates this puppy to want to work, because before I can get her to do any behaviors, I need to know what she'll work for, what's worth it to her. And I went through so many items. I tried lots of things and I could get her attention somewhat. It was okay, but I could not, you know, beat out the birds. She really just didn't want to pay attention to, say, the bird or the cat or a sound that she heard down the street. That was new. Well, I hold these puppy classes on a weekly basis, and I have friends that bring their puppies over, and we have a puppy playdate. We work on training in the meantime, and I have a friend who brought her little puppy over, and Remmy immediately went over to my friend and sat and stared at her now, the first thing I said was, what is in your pouch? I need some! She had some freeze dried turkey. Remmy absolutely went nuts for freeze dried turkey, Who knew? But her leash walk from that day on was so much better. I captured her attention. She was looking at me and I could have said, oh this dog’s not going to be a leash walker. Look, she's terrible. Her attention is terrible. She can't focus. But as soon as I found something she was willing to work for, it was like night and day difference. My training was no different. My tactics were exactly the same. But suddenly I had found something that motivated her and she was willing to work for. From that day on, we made great progress. We made huge strides in the loose leash walking department to the point that she's a phenomenal walker unleash. 

So before you start this loose leash walking with your dog, make sure you have something that motivates them and that they're willing to work for, and you're going to have to probably go to the top of the hierarchy list when it comes to loose leash walking because you will be outside moving and in new territory that your dog's not used to. 

All right, So now that we've talked about how to do it inside and we talked about you're going to need some high value rewards. When you go outside, the first thing I start to do is I stay in front of my house. I try to stay in familiar territory where my puppy is used to the surroundings and I literally make a goal of okay, we're going to walk to the mailbox and back. You know, every time I stop, I lure my puppy into a sit. I don't say sit. I don't cue it. I simply wait for her to sit. In the very beginning, your puppy is not going to know what you're asking for. So I do lure it the first several times so that they get the idea that every time I stop, I'm going to, you know, lure her into a sit. And then they figure that out pretty quickly where you don't need to lure anymore. You simply just wait and your puppy will sit. The second your puppy sits, you mark “Yes.” And you give a reward. From that point on, you can start to venture out further, so I mix it up like we're going to go 20 feet today, 20 feet back. Maybe I want to go 50 feet 50 feet back. Maybe I'm gonna throw in some U turns today. Maybe I'm going to walk in zig zags today. Maybe I'm going to reward every one step that she's looking at me. Maybe I'm going to reward every three steps that my puppy is looking at me. Maybe I'm going to reward one step of looking at me, that good attention. And then I'm going to wait for three steps of good attention and then I'm going to reward. And then I might go back to one step of good attention. 

I really tried to mix it up, so my puppy never knows when the reward is coming and what treat she's going to get. That helps her to stay in the game and to stay motivated and to keep giving me her attention. Now, going back to that treat concept, I do reward my puppies on the loose leash walk while we're walking. So we're actually moving along. And every time my puppy makes eye contact with me, I am putting a treat right into her mouth. Then we keep walking. If she looks back at me again, the treat goes into her mouth. So I want to get to the point where my puppy is literally staring at me as we walk down the road. So this is what we call this would be like a strict heel leash walk. But this is something our puppy is not going to be able to maintain for very far. So in the beginning, I train my puppies to do this. This is how we walk to and from the mailbox. This is how we walk out, you know, to and from our party spot. This is how we walk, maybe to the neighbor's house and back. But then as soon as I venture enough distance, as soon as I go off further enough that I may be going around my block. I'm no longer asking my puppy for a strict heel. But I do like my puppy to check in with me. So we're walking down the road. My puppy stays right by my side because I've been rewarding him every time he stays right there by my side and looks at me. I've been giving him a treat. So he knows right when I'm, you know, lined up with her leg at this point and I make eye contact, I get a reward, and then what you'll notice is your puppy starts to just check in with you. So you might be going on a further distance walk, maybe around your block, and your puppy will check in with you every so often, and I just keep rewarding every time they check in with me, I pay out. I make it worth their while to check in with me, because again, you're out in a very stimulating environment. That's very exciting for your dog. And they're going to want to explore and see things, and you want them to stay focused on you. So while I don't expect my puppies, too, turn their head and keep that keep position the entire walk. I do expect them to stay by my side and check in with me when I say check in. I mean, they make eye contact with me so that I know that they're paying attention to me now to keep their attention on me. I go in different directions. I throw in some zig zags. Like I mentioned earlier, I throw in some U turns where I turned 180 degrees and go the opposite direction. I'm always keeping my puppy guessing kind of where I'm going. So I do look pretty silly at first in front of my neighbor’s houses. I'm sure they get a kick out of every time I have a new puppy, but really mix it up with your puppy because walking in that straight is super boring for them. You know, if you watch a dog, if you just let your dog go in a long line, let's say and go on a leash, you would notice that they zig zag back and forth across the road. They don't walk in a straight line. So this is a hard thing that we're asking our puppies to do and possibly, you know, boring for them. So we do want to mix it up and make it more exciting for them. But again, we do that by changing directions by mixing up what treat they're getting by mixing up. When they get the treat, we try to keep them guessing so that they see that that is a fun game that they're willing to play. 

All right, I hope that helps. If you want to learn more about loose leash walking and how to accomplish it with your puppy, or maybe you want to see videos of me doing it with the puppies that I train, head over to www.BaxterandBella.com. I have an online puppy school where I give you over 75 lesson plans with written lessons and videos showing you exactly what I do and how I do it with all of the puppies that I trained professionally. Thanks for listening, and you guys have an awesome week and happy training.