How To Stop A Dog PULLING On The Leash

So today I'm working with a Labrador Retriever, a young Labrador Retriever in the adolescent stage which can be an absolute nightmare for owners and one of the most common frustrations is the dogs that pull really badly. So this is a bread and butter case for me where I'm helping turn insane pulling into wonderful heel loose lead walking and attempting to do it in just one session. Basically I've been trying to get on onto the slip lead and she she learns that she picks it up in the back garden even when we do it in the park but then when we start walking normal sort of walk it goes back to pulling. Okay. As if you're saying I know I was playing with you for the training mode so now this is me I'm going to pull again. So my job as a canine professional is not to always take the dog off the owner, make the dog look amazing and try and make myself look amazing, give the dog back and then go jobs are good and walk away and leave them with no skill of being able to actually do the thing themselves. I wherever possible try to ensure that the owner does as much as possible. If I need to demonstrate it then I absolutely will but as quickly as possible it goes back to the owner and in this case I had a feeling that the owner had good lead handling skills and was following my direction excellently. So for this whole session I don't touch the lead once. I'm simply educating and coaching the owner how to do it for themselves. Do your normal drill not a test whatsoever. Ivy good girl good girl Ivy this one good girl really nice Ivy this way good girl good girl Ivy this way good girl this way you're 100% gonna have a really good dog there I can see it instantly. I'd like to see you do the same thing again now get a treat out in your right hand and just let her know that you've got it yeah but don't give it to her bit but just don't let her have access to it lovely so she knows that it's you've got it I want to see you do that same drill again I just want to observe the engagement difference so at the minute you were kind of doing just the correction with the slip I'm interested to see what the addition of bringing food into the game does good girl this way good girl lovely Ivy this way good girl Ivy this way good girl is that the kind of engagement you were looking for yeah straight away I'd like you to bring her into a sit and stay it's a it's a common mistake that people make especially when they've watched my videos is that you think oh the slip and it's so much to think about with the slip stuff that it is easy to forget about the other side of the equation if we were doing what they call compulsion training you would be focusing on just the correction if you were doing positive only you'd be focusing on just the food we consider ourselves balanced so we kind of have we expand the whole equation I honestly think the only thing that you need to do and I'm going to help you go through it is start to reward the desired behavior as opposed to just correcting the bad one now what that means is it does bring a level of complexity up to this drill because now you've got an additional thing to think about but what I want you to do is when we're going doing our step any time that she's looking up to you look at giving you that engagement that you want yes good girl good girl Ivy let her know great job then I want you to do that same turn and when she does follow you I want you to pay her but pay her in the heel position yeah so from the dog we saw when you first came in to this dog just because you let her know there is a reward to be had here she's now become locked on and engaged so let's use that to our advantage a hundred percent and this is beautiful now I have millions of views on videos that show me doing my engagement drill it's the thing that I'm most known for and yes that drill does involve some corrections to help the dog understand hey look up to me for guidance and direction but I am a balanced trainer and not only am I a balanced trainer I prefer wherever possible to use positive reinforcement as much as possible and it is easy for owners to make the mistake of thinking that they have to only focus on the correction element whereas my job is to help owners understand that very occasionally there may be a time and a place to let the dog know hey that's not acceptable but as quickly as possible we want to go back to our obedience back to our food work back to our praise and reward work to achieve the maximum amount of success as positively as possible lovely really nice so make sure you're rewarding her for that good girl good girl really nice good girl good girl now pay that I'd pay that with food good girl this way this way good girl good girl this way good girl good girl this way good girl this way yeah beautiful look at the difference now this way my one criticism not criticism just thing to be aware of I think we're getting excited yeah yeah just slow down a little bit your verbal just calm everything down a little bit there's a time and a place for ramping her up I think this drill actually just bringing her down a little bit will help and it is it's easy to get frustrated and want to lean to more of the correction stuff I love positive reinforcement I love food work the only thing here is in that when she now makes the decision to ignore you that's where and all you're doing is you're saying hey no back to me then as soon as she does yeah back to food praise making it fun this way pop and no good this way good girl so we're gonna just do reps of this now yeah and slowly and slowly I'm gonna really I'm gonna come down yeah I'll go from this to kind of this to oh yes all of this I'll be this way pop that that's it good no reward I'll be this way good girl good girl so that transformation was shockingly quick especially considering I didn't even touch the lead once I was just coaching the owner on how to do it for himself but it is a classic example of how dogs thrive and crave on guidance and direction from their owner all they want is for somebody to step in and tell them what it is that you want them to do in a language that they understand and that is all that this drill helps to achieve but it's all well and good being able to do it in a drill in a small patch of grass but we have to then as quickly as possible help the owners understand that the exact same principle applies whether we're doing it in a drill session or under real life distractions and the owner told me that the biggest distraction is the dog getting excited to greet people so very quickly we dived straight into real life scenarios where I tried my best to distract the dog work on that drill help the owner understand bring your attention back to me and when you do so I'm going to pay you praise you reward you with all the incredible things that you want and then we can go back to mostly positive based training oh why are you such a good girl oh you're such a good girl hello lovely so that if she does it to you same principle just pop up and down okay obviously it all happens so quickly it's hard to jump up at you what I'll do is I'll kind of come down a little bit to her level or get her excited oh hello lovely this way good girl oh what's this what's this I'm so damn really nice good girl really nice beautiful so the reason this is so much better is because of this drill yeah and her energy again from the dog you brought in to this dog now is polar opposite so I hope you enjoyed this video remember every session that I do at my sanctuary is completely free of charge if you're interested in being able to know how you can get a session booked in with me come and follow me over on instagram there'll be a link in the description box below if you want to come and check out more of what we're doing at Fenrir because it's through Fenrir that allows me to offer these sessions for three it's what allows me to run my canine sanctuary for rescue dogs and cases like this then go check out Fenrir and see what we're doing over there as well but if you are new here subscribe to the channel like the video if you enjoyed it and I cannot wait to see you on the next episode