Could it be that secretly you hate walking your dog because they are reactive and shout at everything and it is stressing you out! I know its hard to be honest with your dog walker about the things we don’t like about our pets because we don’t want them to think less of us, but we have all been there – Trust me! I could tell you some stories. Times I was so tired and frustrated I couldn’t face taking my new rescue dog out. Times I wanted to give her back. That was before I realised we both needed training and I sought help.

Whatever reason you feel you are struggling, you need to know it is ok to reach out and ask for help – be honest with us. We know that walks don’t always go to plan, even experienced trainers know that you can have the tastiest treats and the squeakiest toys in the area and still not be able to gain recall on our dogs when a leaf becomes more interesting or a dog off lead runs up to your dog unexpectedly. It is frustrating and can often leave you feeling like a failure, thinking the neighbours are talking about you and the dog thinks its all terribly funny whist living their best life!

Stress is something both parties can feel. Like it or not, we bounce off each other. If you are feeling stressed, this stress travels down the lead and through your voice to your dog, which in turn feeds the stress to them. The most important thing you can do when walking or training your dog is to try and relax. Drop your shoulders, take a deep breath and choose a time that you are able to undertake the walk in a relaxed state.

Be prepared

If you know your dog reacts to cars, bikes, other dogs etc. you are going to be walking out of your door stiff as a board just waiting for that first moment where your dog will loose its mind and boof…. walk ruined. Your inner voice says ‘I cant get my dog to focus for the rest of the walk’ ‘the neighbours are looking’ ‘I give this dog everything, why wont he obey me?’ and sometimes ‘I hate walking this dog’. You need to know something very important. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

You are not alone. There, I said it again. I guarantee that you sometimes feel like you are but trust me on this… no one said dog training was easy and those that do lie and are selling something (it’s good marketing!). I can tell you though that it is incredibly rewarding. Maybe this is your first dog or maybe you have trained dogs in the past and never had a problem but this one precious ‘fur-ball’ is breaking all the rules and nothing you seem to be doing is working.

Being prepared for your walk and knowing the obstacles you are going to face can be used to your ADVANTAGE. Preparation is key. Know your enemy!

So how do we fix this?

Firstly you need to preference test your dog. Preference testing basically means we are ranking the things that your dog likes in order of most favourite, to least favourite. We have been doing this as humans for a long time, people ask us: What’s your favourite colour? Preferred pizza topping and in the case of a well know potato chip company, ‘Daddy or Chips?’

You may already know where your dog prefers to sleep and have given them the option of a raised bed (sofa) dog bed, blanket or crate for example. We now need to see what it is that your pet loves which will motivate them to make the right choices.

Conditioning

It is called conditioning. Essentially if I pick up my keys, my new puppy may not react at all, but if I always follow picking up my keys with taking my puppy for a walk, he will quickly realise the keys are an indicator he is going out. They learn the chain of events. Similarly, if I ask the dog to ‘lie down’ and he faffs about before giving me a half-assed attempt, I give him a half assed treat. He gets rewarded but its a bit meh… If however I ask him again and he goes straight into a really good ‘Lie down’ I will reward him with a better treat and maybe a big win – a handfull of treats to let him know he did really well! He will want that again and try to repeat the behaviour, we are shaping the behaviours and rewarding with ‘Big Wins’.

We need to know what motivates your pet. if they are not particularly fussed with treats, are toys more interesting and do they prefer a stuffed toy to a tennis ball, or a Frisbee to a rope ragger?

When you know what the dog likes make a mental note of their list of favourites and keep these back for training purposes so they remain high value. If we had a whole bar of chocolate 3 times a day we wouldn’t appreciate it as much as when we only have it now and then. These are now your high value rewards. Have other middle of the road treats too for regular use but when they do something really well, or you really need them to focus, you have an ace up your sleeve and they will really want to work for it!

Find quiet times and places to train

Training takes time and focus from both of you. Choose a time that you can set aside for dog training. Make sure you have no distractions around as much as possible. We can not control the flight path from Leeming Bar, nor the crow scarers, nor the pigeon that wants to sit on the fence and judge you supervise your session. These are outside of our control. We can however choose a location away from a busy road, or not practice focus work for the first time out side of a school at home time – this is setting yourself up for failure and you are not going to achieve the results you want this way.

Take it back a step. Early in the morning or late in the evening are great times to try and train, away from peak dog walking times! If you have to put your dog in the car and drive to an industrial estate once the workers have gone home, do it. I had to do this with one of my more challenging dogs and I found it really helped me.

Make sure you are LOADED WITH TREATS you do not want to get to a point of running out and not be able to mark the correct behaviour just as Fluffypants makes a massive leap in their training! Lots of treats of various value – save the best treats for when they do the behaviour you want.

Be relaxed and prepared.

Every walk is an opportunity to train your dog, they need consistency and they learn by repetition. If you only have a lead work training session once a week. but walk them three times a day 7 days a week, they dog is not going to learn quickly so to start with you need to use the mantra “Every walk is a training walk”. Make sure you have treats EVERY time you go out. Use every chance you get to reinforce calm, focused work.

If you are in the right frame of mind to train your dog it will be easier and quicker. It wont always go to plan. Sometimes you will have really good sessions and the next day you dog seems to forgotten everything he knows and you are back at the beginning. This is normal – please don’t give up. Just try to go out in a calm but motivated frame of mind.

If our dog has just eaten a big bowl of food and is full, he may not feel very motivated for more food at that moment, but if you are in between meals and they are slightly hungry, they will work harder for the food. If you can let them have a mad 5 minutes play in the garden and burn off some of that pent up energy, they will be able to focus on you better than asking them to be clam as they bounce out of the door eager to have a wee and excited that they are just going out.

Start the training at home before moving ourdoors

Focus work at home is a great start. Reward for eye contact and reinforce recall in a environment where they are relaxed. Calling your dog and reinforcing their obedience at home is a great start. Then move to just outside the house and start focus work there too if you can – if it is too busy there just get to a quiet place as easily as possible and then start the training.

Every time your dog gives you eye contact, reward it. Call his name and reward when he looks at you. Get this nailed down to a point where he is looking at you for the next treat.

Sometimes the ‘perceived threat’ can be something that just appears, be it a dog, cat, jogger or whatever. Being able to get your dogs attention and do a U-turn quickly is a game changer at the start of the training. You can practice this before you need to use it.

About Turn

Using treats lure the dog to turn around with your hand. Encourage your dog to ‘About turn’ and once they are doing this well introduce that command to strengthen the behaviour, when you say ‘About turn’ your dog will be ready to turn around. If you then see something coming up towards you that you know your dog will react to, you can turn around and find another route.

Distance

When you are able to get this focus really well you are ready for the next phase, introducing the big bag from a distance, in this case we will discuss dog to dog reactivity. If you can find a wide open space where you can have a friend with their dog walk the other side the of the field as far away as possible, you can bring your dog in and walk on the other side of the field. Keep interacting with your dog, asking him to focus on you and your treats, the really nice high value ones! Start walking up and down the field so he is far enough away that the threat is not large, and he is being rewarded for focusing on you.

Slowly – start to decrease the gap between you walking parallel to each other up and down the field. Over time, you will be able to walk closer together. Once you start to notice his tolerance threshold decreasing, move away again to where he is comfortable and reinforce that distance. Next time try and get closer again.

Over time, your dog will associate the trigger with getting a reward for not reacting. If they react, you are simply too close. about turn and walk away, rewarding for eye contact again. If you can get to the point where a trigger is identified, you gain your dogs focus and he can either sit or wait calmly looking at you for rewards rather than barking, you have success.

Getting your dog to meet other dogs on a lead is whole new chapter but this guide should help.

Always seek the help of a trained professional should you require it. Check out the APTD website for a trusted trainer from the association of pet dog trainers.