Walking Your Dog, Not Flying a Kite

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count.

Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host, Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things.

Yeah.

Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet And I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to yell, it's okay, he's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence. Joining me, of course, as always, is Max O'Neill from the Down Under Dog Trainer. Uh, Max. Today, we're going to answer listener questions, which have come through on our private Facebook group. If you want to join it, just search The Dog People Podcast on Facebook, hit join. Already a stack of people in there and lots of questions coming through. Lots of great questions coming through. Lauren Fountain, shout out to you. Thanks for your question, Lauren. The question is, it may be an episode coming up in the future. Here it is, Lauren. But I would love some of your tips on loose lead walking. Big one in the dog world. My 6-month-old Jack Russell is very curious, as they are, sniffing, looking, eating everything and anything he can, he can on a walk. Oh, that's great. He also pulls on the lead. We love our walks, but they aren't the most relaxing activity. Any advice would be appreciated. Of course, this has got to be surely the number one biggest thing with dog training when people come to you. I just want the dog to stop pulling me.

Yeah.

When we ran statistics on our inbox messages a couple of years ago, lead walking was number one, followed by recall. It accounts for honestly around like 40 to 50% of our inquiries. It's just the most common thing people struggle with. Lauren, thank you for your question. Today, what I'm going to give you is 5 of our top tips. And then the 6th tip in terms of like actual practical application, we're actually going to film a video for you guys and put that up on the Facebook page. And you'll be able to see all those top 5 tips that we put into place in an actual video, as well as our actual training system that we show clients. We're going to give you that for free. So keep an eye on the Facebook page, that is coming. But without further ado, let's get into our top 5 tips for lead walking. In no particular order, tip number 1 is you need to have something called a continuation marker. So, markers, for those that don't know, we'll give you a bit of a speed run into what a marker is. A marker is a piece of communication or a communication tool. It can be a word or a noise or a sound like a clicker or a yes, for example, that marks an exact moment in time and gives your dog a very precise piece of communication about how they did in that moment. So, what I mean by that is like, you know, our dog's hear good boy, good girl so much throughout the day.

Mm-hmm.

It can become a little bit vague and meaningless, you know, big stretch.

Oh, good boy.

Big stretch. Sleeping on their back in a cute position. Oh, good girl. And quite often before it's even 7:30, our dogs have heard us say that 20 times already. So, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying don't do that. But what a marker is, is much more precise than that.

I couldn't get used to the clicker, but it is a great defined noise that the dog recognises. Click, click. And then they get whatever it is, the toy, the treat, etc. And they know that that means, oh, That's what you want.

Exactly. And so, for those that have a marker, a lot of people will have one marker and that's typically most people use yes, which is just a generic like, hey, you've earned a reward. When I see most people have conditioned their yes marker, most dogs will think that that's like a, what we call a terminal marker, which means you've finished your task. But what a continuation marker is, is to let our dog know, hey, you're doing great. Here's some food or here's some type of reward, but you need to keep going. I don't want you to stop. So, my dog Nelson, his continuation marker is just good, nice, short, sharp. And again, a marker is always very short because we want it to mark a moment. If I say, good boy, which I do, that marks like a 2 to 3 second window. But versus when I say good, it's just half a second of noise for him to go, cool, I was doing something good there. So, continuation marker, when I'm walking my dog and I tell him good, tells him, hey, you're doing great. Here's a reward, but I don't want you to stop doing that. And we need a continuation marker for exercises with any sort of duration to them, like lead walking, place training, a sit or a down stay, for example. Anything we're telling our dog, hey, I need you to keep doing this, don't stop, versus a terminal marker when we say something like yes or a clicker that lets our dog know you're finished, you can break from position.

This is amazing. I'm learning this because I don't have a continuation marker.

Then we're going to get you one.

Yeah. Yeah. Because my marker for her is yes. And that is She gets a reward, whether it's I'll throw the ball or she gets a piece of food. And that's probably where I'm having issues. You know, I have major issues with her staying on her placemat.

Yep.

And we're still working on it. I mean, you look at her right now, no one can see this, but she's hanging off it because she's like, oh, I don't really want to be here. But I use, when she's been staying there, I use the yes and I give her the treat, but I don't want her to get off the placemat. So that's where I must be messing it up.

So it's conflicting information for her, and especially if we've really well conditioned that every time she hears yes, every reflex in her body is telling her to break from position. And that's quite often when I see people struggling with lead walking as well. They'll tell yes, the dog will run around to the front of them like, I'm finished. They go, no, get back. Lead walk for a bit. Yes. They break. No, get back.

And it's just back and forth. The dog's like, what's going on here?

And that's likely what's happening here. So, with— if I'm doing place training with Nelson, if he's on his bed, you can see I'll say good. I'll film a video of this later. I'll tell him good. And his body doesn't move. He goes, cool. You're coming to me for a reward. I can't leave yet. But if I say yes, he's off the bed and he's gone. So, first one is you want to start teaching your dog a continuation mark and be like, hey, good. Here's a reward, but it means keep doing the thing. You don't break out of position. So you can do this by putting them into a sit and telling them good and feeding them position. Good, feeding them the position. You could do it during place training so you can start to condition the marker, and then that can come into your loose lead training. So that's tip number 1. Tip number 2 is I like to train lead walking with food. So we want a dog with food drive. The best way I think to get food drive in, especially if lead walking is a priority to you, is to go to hand feeding. For about a 1-month period at least.

And I can contest this because this is the exact tip you gave me when I brought Kirri to you for the first time. I was like, dude, she's got no interest in food whatsoever. She pays no attention. You're like, mate, get rid of the bowl. Hand feed only. And you will see that change. And she 100% became a monster for food.

Yeah. Now you'd think she's part Labrador.

Yeah.

And that's same for any working dog. Again, when I've been like with my own dog Nelson, with assistance dogs or guide dogs I've raised and trained. Is a lot of those dogs don't know what a food bowl is for the first 12 months of their life. Don't get me wrong, they eat like, you know, Nelson eats like a king, but he didn't know what a food bowl was. Everything came through my pouch. So, I like to do this when we're really wanting to prioritise a behavioural area of training for our dog. I like to go, all right, we're going to hand feed them. So, every ounce of food is going to come through training and we're going to show them that a vast majority of their diet comes through this area of training. So, when we want to fast-track something, like if I've got a client who's like, I'm at my wit's end, I go, cool. Teach your dog that for the next month, 100% of their food is earned through this activity. And you watch how fast your dog learns and you watch their motivation go through the roof. So, my next thing would be with your dog, Lauren, is whether you're on 1 meal a day, 2 meals a day, 3 meals a day, make at least half of that food, if not all of it, if you can, come through training. So, pop it into the treat pouch, go and do a 10-minute session. Boom, that's brekkie. Later on at night, pop it in the treat pouch, go for a 10-minute walk.

Boom.

That's done. You'll see when your dog is working with something that they need, not just want, because food is no longer on tap, it's no longer for free out of a bowl. When they're actually really getting that and really needing it, boom, you watch their work drive go up and you go, oh my God, I feel like I've got one of these amazing working lion Labradors that you see. And it's like, no, that's just a pet dog with true motivation. So, that's tip number 2. And as Jack said, it works.

It does, 100%.

Next thing is an environmental release. So, this goes back into our markers again. So a big, uh, thing I get, you know, people say a lot, go, I don't know if my dog will ever be good at lead walking. You know, they're so just distracted by their environment, we just can't seem to pull away, you know. Or, you know, especially for breeds like your Cocker Spaniels or your Jack Russells, your Terriers and your Hunters that are really obsessed with finding a trail. And I'm here to tell you it's the exact opposite is true. So my dog Nelson is an entire male Rottweiler. Rottweilers are a breed they use for tracking a lot. He's IGP line, so his parents were both really good trackers and he'd come from Long lines of dogs who are very into their tracking. He's an entire male, so he loves to sniff and lick urine and cover it. But we use this to our advantage. To do this, first we're going to rewind a bit and start to understand the difference between a distraction and a competing motivator. So we've got Kira on the other side of the room who's currently on her bed. If I was to pick up my keys, for example, and throw them near her, she looked at them and went, what's that? And now she's just lying back down in her bed. That's a distraction. She doesn't want the keys. They temporarily caught her interest where she was like, huh, what's that? That distracted me from my job for a moment. I'm going to go back to doing what I'm supposed to be doing. What a competing motivator is, is if I suddenly got out Kira's ball and started bouncing that in the corner of the room, what that would be is a competing motivator. Kira actually wants what I've got, and she wants something that is not only distracting her from her job, but it's a competing motivator. It's competing against me. for her motivation. So, when we see a dog like your 6-month-old Jack Russell, Lauren, your dog's not distracted by the environment. Instead, they're massively motivated by it. And if I was to rock up at your house, if I was one of these dog whisperers that can speak dog apparently, and was to ask your dog, what's the best way for you to gain access to your environment? Your dog would tell you that being disobedient and pulling and working against you is the most Reliable way for them to gain access to their environment. If you were to come ask my dog Nelson, hey, what's the best way for you to go and pee on that tree and sniff it? He goes, I've got to work with Dad. I've got to work through Dad. I've got to cooperate with Dad to earn that. So, when we're walking, if we're in a high distraction area with smells, my dog works better. He's like, oh my God, all these smells. Dad, Dad, Dad, look how well I'm doing. Look how well I'm doing. He knows that working against me is a complete dead end and won't work. He knows that if he performs well, that's his best chance of gaining access to that. So, what I want you to start to do with your dog is don't let them gain access to their environment for free. Let them work really good and then condition a release cue like break or okay or free, whatever you want to call it, another marker, and teach your dog, now you can go. So, if they even give you 10 seconds of focus, boom, release into their environment. Your dog's already got a really strong motivator there. Use it to your advantage.

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Point number 4 is appropriate equipment. Harness, collar, martingale collar, slip lead, chain, halti, prong collar, e-collar. Whatever you're using, you need to use something that fits with your dog. The order that I just listed those tools in is roughly what I call like the aversion scale. The harness is probably the easiest and most comfortable thing for your dog to wear. The prong collar is probably the most uncomfortable thing for your dog to wear. Again, neither is right or wrong, they're just different. There's type dogs I train on a harness, there's dogs I'll train with a prong, and everything in between. It kind of, uh, depends on the dog. The most common tool I use is a slip lead. And when we know to go up a level from a, you know, a harness to a collar, a collar to a martingale, a martingale to a slip, a slip to a halter or prong or whatever, is when our dog has what we call maxed out the pressure. If your dog voluntarily puts all their weight into that piece of equipment and we're trying to use that as a way of disincentivising or communicating with them, they're going, Mum, I voluntarily do this to myself the whole walk. You can do this, I'm not going to notice it and I'm not going to care about it. So when a dog has maxed out that pressure, if I see a dog just pulling all their weight through the collar, I'm like, all right, you've ruined the collar, we need to go up a level. So If that's you, sort of see where you're at in that scale and then maybe go up and go, okay, maybe I need to use something else. Again, in this video, we're going to teach you how to use tools correctly. So you can wait for the video to come out before you actually start using it. But if your dog is, you know, if we've just described your dog, they're maxing out pressure on a piece of equipment, Lauren, or anyone else listening, then I'd strongly suggest getting some more equipment.

You hear a lot, or you see a lot of trainers online talking about teaching a dog lead pressure. And how to turn the pressure off. So you're talking about a slip lead, for instance, which is what I use with Kira and teaching her that, you know, if you pull that way, you're going to feel this bit of pressure. But if you turn to me and come back to me, all the pressure's released.

Exactly.

And it's just teaching them that, hey, no pressure on, pressure off, pressure on, pressure off. And I suppose that's like a lot of things with dog training and dogs. There's always, it's always about pressure, a bit of spatial pressure or, you know, lead pressure and that sort of stuff. So. With the lead pressure, can you kind of explain how that process works?

Yeah. So, we always play a game with our dog of negative reinforcement. So, negative reinforcement is where we take something uncomfortable away or bad away as a way of rewarding. Some examples of negative reinforcement are if you forget to close the fridge and it just beeps at you, beep, beep, beep, beep, and then you finally go, oh, I want this thing to stop. It's annoying me. I'm going to shut the fridge, and that beeping stops. That's negative reinforcement. So, negative reinforcement, again, is taking something bad away to reinforce behaviour. So, in this situation, like Jack said, it's leash pressure. We teach our dog, hey, if you disengage from me and start pulling, leash pressure is going to be on, that leash is going to tighten and it's going to be uncomfortable. But if you reconnect with me, you can turn that off. And then in future, you can avoid that pressure altogether if you just stay connected to me. And dog goes, ah, okay. So, it becomes a game of just beating the pressure, essentially.

And this is again where, you know, your markers come into play as well because they get that lead pressure and lose. As soon as that comes off, it's the yes. And then they get rewarded.

Yep.

Like, oh, hold on a sec. Okay. So that lead pressure equals nothing good. As soon as that's gone, I get the yes. So as long as that's never, I never feel that pressure.

Yep.

I'm doing the right thing and I might get rewarded.

Exactly. And our dog soon just learns to skip that and go, well, why don't I not check out and just keep checking in with you? And we go, exactly. So, we're going to film that really detailed video of you. It'll go for about 10 or 15 minutes, and we'll upload that to the Facebook page next few days. But yeah, appropriate equipment is a huge one. And our last one is putting fulfilment around the walk and not relying on our dog getting all their fulfilment in the walk. And I'm going to explain what I mean by that. Let's look at what your Jack Russell is designed to do. So, we all know Jack Russells are a terrier and they like to hunt rats. Most people, if they know nothing about dogs, will know that Jack Russells are very, very adept rodent hunters. That is what they were bred for, and they do a fantastic job. Fantastic job of it. Now, if we really break that down and go, all right, what does it look like when our dog hunts a rat or a Jack Russell hunts a rat? There's lots of sniffing that thing out and finding it, you know, stalking it, you know, trying to orient that prey. There's a lot of chasing, there's a lot of biting, and there's a lot of fighting to kill that thing. Okay, now if we look at what your dog is trying to do on the walk, they're super curious. It's constantly trying to sniff stuff, lunge at stuff, chase stuff. They're trying to put all of their Jack Russells in that one activity. So, if your primary outlet for your dog is their walk and they don't get much else, they will put everything into that walk.

Yeah.

So, what it looks like in various breeds is one of the things, you know, when I first met Jack and Kira, we said was, hey, I need you to go and get one of these balls and do this and do that. Because a lot of what we're seeing in the failures here is Kira is trying to squeeze all of her enrichment into this one window of the day. And a lot of those instincts she has are completely incompatible with the activity we're trying to do. Kira was trying to herd shit, lunge stuff, bark at stuff, pull, do all these herding behaviours. You go, hey, we love to see that, just not here. So, giving your dog other outlets for their behaviour so that on the walk they don't have to try and squeeze everything in. If you've got a German Shepherd or a Rottweiler, one of these guardian breeds, they might try and, you know, if they're trying to squeeze everything into the walk, we might see some reactive behaviour. They might feel like they're on patrol. If you've got a herding breed, they're going to lunge at stuff and herd stuff, etc., etc. So, for your Jack Russell, it's about going, what I want to do is giving them a separate window during the day. Go, hey, here's a chance you can hunt something out. So, you could do some scatter food games. Here's your chance to chase, bite and fight something. And my biggest recommendation for you to get is a flirt pole, Lauren, or anyone else with a dog, if it sounds like we're describing your dog, and going, doing these 2 activities are completely separate to the walk. So, when you go out, the walk is just a walk. That's our top five tips. Other than that, we will make that video, post that in the group, and give you a detailed explanation of our technique and our method and how we actually train this into our clients at Down Under Dog Trainer. Once you watch that video and put in place these tips, you'll have all the tools you need to sort out your dog's pulling.

I think the the biggest takeaway from that because then you do hear this was like my dog just drags me everywhere. Dog's doing this and the sniffing and da da da. And that's the thing. And it comes back to one of our previous episodes to go and listen to is breed specific enrichment.

Yep.

If you can get that sorted before, like, 'cause I think a lot of people, again, they still have it in their head as like, the dog needs to go for a walk. The dog needs to go for a walk. I've got to walk the dog. And if you actually just, instead of thinking about walking the dog, focused on the breed-specific enrichment, as you said, with a Jack Russell, it might be a flirt pole. And then you don't have to be stressed about, oh God, I haven't taken the dog out for a 45-minute walk because guaranteed the dog's not Interested in a 45-minute walk around the block unless they're dragging you around and sniffing everything and trying to react to things. So forget the walk. Stop fussing over walking and just focus on that other stuff that can be done at a park, you know, with you and a ball.

That's it.

You and the flirt pole. The flirt pole can be done in the backyard. You know, the dog doesn't care. The dog just wants to have an outlet. It doesn't know, oh God, I'm in the backyard. I don't want to chase the flirt pole here. I want to go to a park where I can chase it. It's like, it doesn't care. It just wants to do what it was bred to do. A friend of mine messaged me, she goes, I've got a Kelpie and it's just dragging me everywhere. And I'm just like, okay, so what else do you do other than that walk? Oh, well, I take him on, you know, we go for a walk every day. Yeah, we go, we go every day, twice a day for an hour. That's not anyone's fault. I feel that's how we've been conditioned over so many years. It's like, get a dog, dog needs to walk. Simple as that.

It's good. It's, it's, and I think we touched on this during that episode, you know, back when I was growing up and everything is, you know, that was only just coming in. You've got to walk your dog every day. People thought we're a bit weird.

Yeah.

Every day?

Yeah.

So it's good we've gone there. And I think people are just starting to understand enrichment now. As we actually did a, posted a reel on this on Down Under Dog Trainer, check it out on Instagram, saying I only walk my dog 2 to 3 times a week and here's why. We listed all the other things that we do with him. And if you were to ask Nelson to compile that list and go, all right, look at all these activities, where do you rank the walk? He would go, oh, that's like at the bottom.

That's like the lowest. Oh yeah, Kira hates walking.

She's like, why are we doing this?

This is boring.

Yeah. One thing I can suggest, especially for a Jack Russell, any dog really, is what I've been doing with Kira a lot lately, because it's been raining so much, is we've been with her dinner time, I've been hiding her food and getting her to search it out and find her food. And she absolutely, oh man, she goes nuts. She loves it. The nose is down and she's just racing through the house trying to find the food.

Yeah.

And it's fun too. I enjoy it. I love watching her try and find the pieces of food and like, she just, it's just so much fun. As Max said, video available, uh, will be available on the Facebook page. So look out for that one. We'll see you next time. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill, edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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