Everyone naturally thinks dogs love to go on a walk. Nearly everyone has problems walking their dog on a lead. Here I explain why and how to prevent it happening.
I have recently been working with owners who have dogs about 1 year old who are stressed out of their minds when they leave their front door and walk along the street closest their house, pulling, lunging and barking at everyone.
This stress has built up because puppies when little are forced to walk out of their front door too young. Their mental health is ignored, they have no choice to do it because we put them on a lead and take them for a walk because we think….thats what dogs are meant to do.
When they reach adulthood the dogs think: ‘ THIS IS THE MOST STRESSFUL PLACE EVER ’ and the owners don’t understand what has happened.
When puppies are tiny they need us to look out for them.
Dog listeners don’t take them out of the home into the unknown dangerous world until the puppy completely trusts their owners to take care of them and keep them safe. The very earliest this should be done is 4 months but it varies with the character of each dog.
If your dog is pulling on the lead it does not trust you and is trying to control where it goes because it has worked out it knows better than you how to stay safe.
The wrong thing to do at this point is use a controlling lead or a halter so that when they pull we can still hold on to them. This lead does not change their minds, they will continue to pull.
If your dog is sitting refusing to go anywhere it also wants to control the walk, this is a more nervous character who is saying in the only way it knows how to ‘You are crazy I don’t think its safe out there, please don’t take me’
The wrong thing to do is to pick them up and force them out because we think the puppy needs to be socialised and introduced to all the things it thinks is dangerous from an early age.
Its a bit like taking a tiny baby in the push chair and walking alongside a motorway on the hard shoulder because when its older it has to be used to the noise and danger!
Dog listeners work with their young puppies at home, gaining their trust, bonding with them, learning how to be a good owner to a dog. Playing with them and doing heel training at home until the dog and owner is confident.
When a dog trusts us implicitly it doesn’t matter where we go with it, it will look to us for safety and when they believe in us there are no behaviour problems. You can help older dogs overcome their fears by learning dog listening but its alot easier when you start the right way.
Email me via the contact form to find out how I can help you. When you employ a Dog Listener to coach you through the process the results can be very quick and dramatic in a couple of weeks.
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