Advanced Training-Group Leash Walking

Training with your dog should be an on-going activity. To keep it fresh and fun, introduce new challenges for you and your dog. I think one of the best ways to have fun while expanding your training is to get together with friends or fellow students from training classes, and meet once a week, once every other week, or even once a month and work on training under distractions with other dogs.

Working with dogs by weaving them through other dogs helps develop their skills when walking through crowds of people, with or without dogs. If you frequently take your dog to events, to parks, or walking downtown, this provides great practice.

Below are some ideas you can do with a group of dogs to obtain better leash walking skills under distractions.

Exercise One -- Line dogs up about 3-4 paces apart along a straight line. The dogs in line are put in a sit/stay. Have a dog weave in and out between the dogs. Have each person take turns weaving their dog through the group of dogs.

Exercise Two- Repeat as above but put dogs in a down/stay.

Exercise Three- Form a circle, instead of a row, and repeat exercises one and two. This is a little harder than the first two exercises since the dog can see more dogs in their vision.

Exercise Four- When the dogs get really good at this, repeat the above exercises off leash!

If your dog is too distracted around other dogs, first try these exercises with people only, without their dogs. If your dog wants to visit every dog, just make the space between dogs wider, so it is easier for your dog. It's always best to set them up for success.

Meredith Gage

Pawsitive Experience

541-318-8459

Trainingdogs123@bendbroadband.com

http://www.pawsitiveexperience.com