How old was you dog when he became a “good” walker?

[BG and Gavin]

*Note:  post being made while being influenced by feelings of frustration*

So how old was you dog when he became a “good” walker?  Okay Gavin is just a puppy, one week shy of 6 months and maybe my expectations are too high, but after 80 minutes of walking a day, everyday for the past three months, I would hope that he would be better.  The issue is pulling forward and to the side and picking up rocks on the road.  He was loose leash walking about 75% of the time (unless he spotted a person or dog, then surged forward).  However the last few days it has been a near constant struggle.  Heeling in class is a joke because he is surging forward to catch the dog in front.  He is not dominant or aggressive in any way – just wants to visit EVERYONE!  He has a pretty decent sit-stay, down-stay, even with distractions and is well mannered in the house.  He also knows a wide variety of tricks.  His recall is so-so.  I have done the stop, make him sit, turn and go the other way routine.  Also lots of positives (praise and treats) when is does the right thing.  The trainer would like to try a plastic pinch collar on him tomorrow (Triple Crown).  I am pretty consistent and a good leader but my “calm, assertive energy” is waning on walks.  My husband shares in the training and is pretty consistent too.  Are my expectations too high?  Also to add, he weighs nearly 50lbs.

[Adina P]

Yes to each his own. I apologize if I sounded all high and mighty ;-) I think it's FINE for someone to use a Gentle Leader for the dog's lifetime. Nothing wrong with that. It's just my pet peeve for ME to have dogs that don't heel well.... But that's 'my' issue =) It all depends on what each person wants.

[BG and Gavin]

Adina said:
"Rosco and our late great Thule were excellent leash walkers, but only because we used a very effective training method (not due to our skills or the doodle's smarts) and put in a lot of work. But I use an "old school" method that not everyone likes...but it's amazingly effective and will get you excellent leash walking within a couple weeks around minor distractions...3-4 months for hard distractions."

Do tell. I would love to hear about your training techniques. Perhaps my communication was a bit off, I should have said "how long" instead of "how old." I know it takes alot of work and I have been working hard at it and putting the time in with corrections. Obviously I have a techniques issue. I need to "step up" in class tomorrow and demand a little personal attention as the trainer's time has been taken up with other dogs that have displayed fear and agression. Gavin is the drunk at the party. Harmless, flirty and cute, but annoying to the person in charge of walking him home!

[Kelli, Fenway, & Dustin Pedroia]

Adina uses the David Dikeman method of training. There is a review for the tapes written in the review section and there are books too. Check it out. It is effective. Oh yeah and there's a group too.

[Adina P]

Yup.
It's not the only method out there that can work and plenty of people get nice walking with more 'modern' methods using treats. But it is what worked best and fastest for us.

Since you're working with a trainer, your plan to get more individual time and your questions answered is a good one I think. Too bad the trainer's had his/her time taken up with aggressive dogs.

[Holly Doodle]

We used ( I should say are using :) )treats to train Holly to heel, but she is highly food motivated. We started as soon as we got her at 3 months and she's now 8 months. We always carry treats with us to entice her to stay at our side, but we're to the point now where we don't always need them. It's become more of a natural thing just to walk by us and I don't think she even knows/remembers why she does it. Of course there are always bad days when she is extra rowdy or stubborn but for the most part this technique has worked well. I'm not sure if we'll ever take her on a walk without treats at all, but I don't mind. If Gavin is food motivated you may want to try this.

[Linda and Murphy]

Murphy still gets treats on our Saturday at the Farmers Market.....not near as many. We usually spend about 2 hours there and we do A LOT of meet and greets. Its an excellent way to socialize your dog.

[Linda and Murphy]

Murphy is huge and was 70 lbs at 6 months when we started our first dog class. (we had done puppy class).
After watching me struggle with him, the instructor came over with a pinch collar saying "Try this". The correction was instant. No tugging or pulling at all.
Murphy is now 3 and 100 lbs. The leash I use is just a handle when I walk through a lot of people (farmer's market every Saturday.) I no longer use the pinch collar (but really cold days down here still make him a little goofy ;) )

[Kathy Spyker]

I could not get Lilly to stop pulling either, so I bought a "Halti" and I can hold on to the leash with 2 fingers now..I love it!!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Guinness is now 10 months old, and it has just been in the last 6 to 8 weeks that he's really learned the "heel" consistently. I can't even speculate on how many hours I've spent on this one command....many! We did it inside the house on and off leash for weeks...every chance I got. There were lots of treats involved in our "in house" training. We did it on walks around the neighborhood. I would change pace and direction often to keep him focused on me...the neighbors thought I was crazy. On our outside walks he got his treats when we got home, because it seemed too "choppy" to stop and give treats as we walked. Then came the most challenging part...in stores and distracted areas. Again, I would constantly change my pace and direction, and that made the difference because he had to focus on me to figure out "where the heck we were going". I started out using a choke collar, but quickly realized that was just teaching him to avoid correction. For the past couple of months we just use a flat collar, and I'm more comfortable with that. All that said, there are still times when he sees something that is so exciting he looses his interest and/or concentration, and I do have to give him a little correction. When that happens, he is now pretty quick to respond. Good luck...this is a tough one.

[BG and Gavin]

Thanks Jane for the step-by-step and the time frame. I really need to take a deep breath and refocus on this. This will come right? I mean he is smart enough and has picked up alot of other things very quickly, its just his sniffer and his need to socialize overtakes his attention to me. Laci, I think I need better treats for outside because I could hold a whole bag in front of him and its of no interest to him if he is aroused by something else. As you suggest Linda, perhaps a change in collar will help me get his attention so I can better teach him. One thing he is really good at is the stop command. If he gets out to the end of his leash and I yell stop. He turns around and sits. Have to work on this off-leash though.

[Natasha]

At six months, Rouser was exactly as you describe your dog. We tried the sensitive harness. It worked pretty well, but not as well as a pinch collar.

For those who are using harnesses, I believe that, unless it is a sensitive harness (d-rings in the front of their chest where you attach the leash, a harness will actually encourage your dog to pull.

We decided to be dilligent with training. We did use a pinch collar, but we tought Rouser:

a) "Take a break" - that means - go ahead, run in front or behind us, sniff what you like - it's your time.
b) "heel" - we don't use loose leash - we're either in heel or take a break mode

He was great with both of these things. We started and ended all walks in take a break mode (to emphasize the fun of a walk) as per our instructor. The rest of the time, he is in heel. We worked our way up to heel for 75% of our walk.

Our only problem was how to address his desire to meet other dogs and, sometimes, people. He absolutely would not contain himself if he saw another dog and he got big enough that he could drag me if he wanted to. For that, we brought treats to encourage him to stay in heel, used the pinch collar to keep him from darting forward and/or dragging me, and we turned around and walked the other way if he showed a hint of darting or pulling. Yes, it was a pain. Yes, it meant that for a few weeks we couldn't take him to the little plaza with the coffee shop (people wouldn't be patient as we would turn to walk away from them and we didn't have enough discipline to just not care). Sure enough, after two or three weeks, he learned that if he wanted to get what he wanted (meet the dog or meet the person), he had to calmly walk up to them.

Doesn't mean we don't slide back to pulling behavior - we do. We're dealing with that right now. However, repeatedly taking him away from the thing he wanted so much to see was the only way (for us) that we could get him to understand the behavior that we were looking for.

[BG and Gavin]

Thanks Natasha for the thoughtful and informative reply :)