Start from day one! A lead and a collar are
foreign objects to your pup so they need to get used to wearing them and learn
what it means to wear them.
We started out really well with Coop – for about
the first week! He took to the collar and lead very quickly and didn’t mind
them. In my puppy classes – we saw pups coming in at like 12 weeks old and had
never been on a lead and they hated it! So make sure to get them used to it
straight away.
The biggest thing I have learnt through our
experience with Cooper is that you need to remember that your puppy is
experiencing everything for the first time and they are SO curious! However, if
you want a well-trained dog on the lead, you need to lay down the laws from the
very beginning!
Start by
putting the lead on in the house when the puppy is calm and you have made him
‘sit’. Open the front door and make him stay until you tell him to come. You
should never start the walk with an over excited puppy or dog as it will make
your walk impossible. Make sure he is calm and you walk out the door first and
then tell him to follow you.
Positive
reinforcement, as always, works best for a puppy. The ideal situation is to have your pup on your left side
with a slack lead flush with your left leg – so when this happens, make sure to
give lots of praise to your puppy – ‘good puppy’ in a high pitched voice. Traditionally
in Australia we like to walk with our dogs on the left so when you pass another
dog they don’t come at each other head on – so try sticking to that from the
start so you train your dog to always be on the left. If the lead tightens say ‘ah ah’ and
stop immediately, acting like a post – don’t move at all and don’t shorten the
lead - just wait. When the lead slackens, immediately reward with praise and
move forward. Your puppy should be learning that pressure on the collar means
‘stop’ while no pressure on the collar means ‘go’. If your puppy is initially
reluctant to walk be careful not to pull or drag the pup or get angry, as it
will discourage and worry your puppy, who may already be unsure of the lead.
We had a
big issue with Cooper getting tired and plonking on walks – don’t push your pup
– if he has had enough, take him home. You need to take care of their growing
bodies. However, there were times that Cooper was doing this to be stubborn –
for example, when we would try to leave the park. So you do need to be strong
with them and let them know who is boss. You also need to be the one who
chooses the direction you go on the walk – not the pup. You’re the one who
chooses when they can go and sniff the tree or the grass, not them. As soon as
we started to show Cooper that he couldn’t boss us around and that we were boss
– the improvement has been incredible. We’re also teaching him that we can go
on a walk without going to the park and that we can go to the park and walk
around without going off the lead. This will (hopefully) teach him to stop
pulling as he wont always be let of the lead when we go to the park. It is not
up to him – it is up to us! 
Teaching
your dog to ‘heal’ – to walk flush by your side, is very important, especially
if you want to walk your dog off lead. We did a lot of 'walk to heal' with Cooper
from week one of bringing him home. I put him on the lead in a quiet area (your
own garden is perfect or out in the street early in the morning when no one is
around – the less distractions the better at first) and have a treat in my left
hand flush with my left leg – you step off with your left leg first and walk
slowly saying ‘heal’ – take a few steps and use the treat to put him in a sit
and as his bum hits the ground give him the treat and say – ‘good boy’. And
then build on this by taking more steps. And once he has mastered that – start including distractions (other dogs, people, cars, etc). It is important to teach him
to be flush with your left leg – and not to walk in front of you as you don’t
want to encourage pulling on the lead.
The aim is
to learn to walk together not begin a lifelong game of ‘tug–o-war’. Remember,
how important the first few months of your pups lives are – they are like a
sponge and will learn very quickly from you so please make sure to teach them
good habits from the beginning because it is much easier than trying to train
bad habits out of them. A cute pulling puppy – is only going to turn into a
strong big, monster on the lead.
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