Getting Started With How To Train Your Dog To Wear a Harness
For a lot of dogs, harnesses can be crucial to their success outside while walking on a leash. It’s not uncommon for dogs to be sensitive to things touching their body, so we put together this mini guide (it’s not intended to have all of the answers - but we’ll keep adding to it!) on how to get your dog to wear a harness. We’ve included a link (keep scrolling to the bottom of the piece) to the harnesses we love as well. [Disclosure: The page may contain affiliate links, meaning TOC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through our links, at no cost to you.]
How to Desensitize Your Dog to a New Harness Before It’s Needed
In the post above, Beth, a member of our TOC Fam, has been working on desensitizing her dog, Dug (he was six months old in these videos) to his new harness. (Good news: These videos are from several months ago, so he is happy in his harness now!) Dug is sensitive to things touching his body, but having a harness is important since he spends a lot of time on a long line.
If you swipe through the post above, you’ll see some home videos from Beth and Dug! Here is what Beth shared with TOC:
“It’s taken a long time for Dug to feel comfortable with his current harness so when it looked like he was going to grow out of it soon I bought a new one in advance so we could spend time helping Dug to really love wearing it. We’ve been working on this for about four weeks now.
Video One: Here we are playing a nose targeting game with the harness. Dug runs to the harness, puts his nose in the hole and then is marked and rewarded with a treat toss. The purpose of this game is to build confidence around the harness and for Dug to move towards the harness (his default is to run away from it).
Video Two: Here we’re using a behavior Dug already knows well - a chin rest on the sofa (PS: you can learn how train your dog to do a chin rest in the TOC Challenge) - to encourage him to put his head further through the hole in the harness. I’m not luring with a treat - Dug volunteers this behavior and then is marked and rewarded.
Video Three: This was a huge breakthrough moment for us. Dug got to the point where he was happy to put his nose in the harness but not happy for it to go past his ears. I saw a trainer on Instagram ( @noblewoof ) use different novel objects to help teach her dog this behavior. By using something that Dug was already completely comfortable with – his collar - we were finally able to make the association that head through equaled a jackpot. This quickly translated to the harness and other novel objects, like the T-shirt shown.”
How To Turn a Scary Harness Into Something Fun for Your Dog
Listen, there’s nothing fancy about this video above. Everyday of the week that I filmed it, I pulled out my dog Otis’s car safety harness and simply played fetch with it. And then I put it away! WHY?! Well, because I made an oops. I got this harness right before a road trip and didn’t ever desensitize him to it before tossing it on him. It’s heavy and has metal buckles (road safety!). He didn’t seem super uncomfortable in it, but when I decided to loop back to it and do the consent-based work I should have done initially, he BOLTED as soon as I pulled it out. I tried a few times and each time he spotted or heard it, he was gone. He didn’t even want to stick around to see if there were treats. WOAH NELLY! Now I could have done a million different things here, but I think we both were in need of something fun and low pressure.
So one day, I pulled it out, set it down on the ground, and gave his retrieve cue. Otis knows his cues are all invitations (aka he won’t be forced into anything), so I was just curious what he would do. Something about the “fun game” premise made his body language shift COMPLETELY. He softened and started wagging as he realized we were playing a game instead of trying to do something that felt like a lot of pressure to him. Sure enough, he picked the harness right up and handed it to me. After just a day, I could make pretty big tossing motions with the harness in my hand without seeing any concern from Otis. He was naturally desensitizing to the sound of the metal clasps through this game too! And the only time that harness touches him is when he grabs it, so he has full control over the interaction. Pulling the harness out no longer predicts having to work with something scary. It predicts a game he loves! Now that he is not panicked at the sight of it, I feel a bit more free to start the real work of using consent to put it on him 🤣!
So the moral of this story is twofold: 1) Desensitize AHEAD of using a new harness (I know better 😳); 2) It is okay to not always be super serious! Sometimes silly games can actually be incredibly helpful! (Pssst...There isn’t just one right way to do something. You can do what works for YOUR dog!)
What if Your Dog Already Hates Their Harness?
Have you ever worked on something and just felt stuck? That was me with the new harness I got for Otis. He rarely wears harnesses anymore, and when I tried to put this new one on, I was pretty surprised to see him sprint to the other room. Like all of you, I genuinely care about how my dog feels, and I prioritize giving him choice. For a couple of months, I tried all sorts of things: basic classical conditioning (pairing harness with treats), teaching him to put his head through it (first through other objects), and all sorts of start button behaviors. No matter what I did, he never chose to put more than his nose into the actual harness and would run away if I moved it even a little bit. Looking back, I see A BAJILLION ways I could improve on what I was doing (and some of them likely would have worked!). I think I was so incredibly focused on how Otis felt about the harness that I never stopped to actually define my goal behavior and break it down into a training plan (pssst...we can do both).
So when my training didn’t work, I felt genuinely stuck. As luck would have it, I had an unrelated conversation with Kiki Yablon, who asked me a question that stuck with me long after our conversation: “How do you know if your dog actually likes something?” The only thing I have to go off of here is his observable and measurable behavior. Then I watched an awesome presentation from Lindsay Wood Brown with a demo from Scotti Harvey where she socialized a six month old puppy to kids. Scotti absolutely cared about how the pup felt, and she also knew that there is no way to separate operant and respondent conditioning. She was really intentional about how she set the sessions up, so she could get and reinforce the behavior she wanted around kids (rather than only thinking about giving treats around kids). The combo of all these things made a lightbulb go off in my head.
I started to think more operantly (knowing full well that classical conditioning was coming along for the ride). Thinking like this unstuck me. This video above shows a highlight of the initial steps! Here’s my TLDR play-by play:
I tried to simplify the whole thing when I thought about the goal. Here’s what I decided on: I wanted Otis to remain still with loose body language (aka “comfortable”) while I put the harness on him. Then I went and really defined what that meant (perhaps even thinking about what does “liking” the harness look like?). I wanted a soft, still body. I wanted a relaxed face, neutral ears, and his head to remain still and eventually for it to move forward. I knew specifically that I did NOT want any backwards movement (even a subtle weight shift), but it is easier to focus on what I want. Because of how I train, putting these things into the criteria actually helped prevent me from moving too fast. Then I thought about how I could break this down into an actual training plan. I knew I wanted to start with us both on the ground (that’s where we’re even in height, and he is most likely to “be calm” when lying down in a training context). I started by simply sitting down on the ground and capturing the basic position I wanted (calm body language in a down and oriented to me.
Then I actually skipped a step that I had to come back to (but thanks to thinking about this operantly, it was really clear how to troubleshoot). (NOTE: The video shows the adjusted order after I corrected my mistake.) I moved from the base position to introducing a leash that I could create a HUGE circle with and put over his head. I started by simply raising my looped leash up (but not moving it towards him) and marking and reinforcing for the criteria I had already defined. Because I knew my criteria, I was crazy careful to set up conditions that I thought would set him up for success (aka I didn’t push for speed). I worked in baby steps. Before I even tried moving the looped leash over his head, I tried holding the leash flat and just moving it slightly over his head. That was when I saw his head move back just a little and his ears pin back. I tried one more time and the same thing happened. That’s when I realized I hadn’t actually broken it down enough.💡
The step where Otis wasn’t able to meet criteria came when my hands (with a leash) were coming over or around his head. Funnily enough, this is the same step where our start button work broke down (he was always willing to put his nose in, but then darted if I moved the harness even a smidge) - coincidence???...I think not! But this time, I was thinking operantly, and this helped me get into a problem solving mindset. I realized I was actually lumping criteria by introducing my hands coming over his head at the same time as introducing a leash coming over his head. So I nixed the leash. I went back to the base behavior, and I worked on fading my hands into the equation. Pretty soon, I was able to move my hands over and around his head while he had calm body language.
Then when I went back to the leash, suddenly I saw different behavior from Otis. I was able to move the large looped leash towards him, and he kept a loose body and face, neutral ears, and his head still or even forward slightly. That is what I wanted to see from Otis in order to move forward. I said “putting it on” out loud before I made any move to put the looped leash over his head (predictability removes a lot of stress) and “taking it off” before I took the leash off.
I gradually made the leash loop smaller to mimic the size of the harness opening. When that was easy, I switched to the harness. Using a harness changes the conditions, so I lowered some of my criteria. I started by simply presenting it (without moving it towards him) and marking and reinforcing that same behavior and body language. My job was to set up conditions so that Otis was successful. This meant I had to be super observant about all the little behaviors and to go at his pace. It didn’t take long for me to be able to put the harness over his head. Just like with the leash, I said “putting it on” before moving it over his head and “taking it off” before pulling it off of him. What happened over time was pretty interesting. Dr. Friedman talks about selecting behaviors in the flow. Well Otis naturally started to offer putting his nose into the loop, so I started to select for that.
We got to the point you see in the video in two 4-minute sessions. I laugh a little bit because of how much time I spent working on this in previous months. I have tried to think about what I did differently this time. I actually think the biggest difference is that I just did a better job training - LOL! I absolutely could have been this thoughtful in my previous attempts using start button behaviors, but I got so hung up on Otis’s feelings that I forgot to think through behavior like I know how to. Respondent and operant conditioning always happen together. I will ALWAYS care about how my dog feels. ALWAYS. And I am a better problem solver when I think operantly because it forces me to be intentional. Could I have caught the same gap (pressure of hands over head) when I was using start buttons? YES! But I was using them without having a real plan for building a behavior. I was just assuming that the end behavior I wanted would magically evolve if Otis had a choice. Sometimes I get away with that. I didn’t here.
In terms of next steps, I think I want to clarify the sequence of events. I hadn’t planned on a start button behavior, but one is naturally evolving (Otis sticking his nose through the harness). I naturally started waiting to move the harness until he put his nose to the opening, so it started to operate as a start button behavior anyway. I think I like having that built into the sequence, so I want to get more intentional about it. Then I will need to change the conditions and bring this to a stand (I doubt in real life I will have him lie down...though I could). I am pretty sure I will start from a kneel while he stands though (less physical pressure and more of a baby step). I will likely go back and move through hands, leash loop, and harness with him standing and me kneeling and then with both of us standing.
What’s funny is that this experience actually taught me a lot about how I can be more intentional with start buttons. I LOVE start buttons. But I was not thinking much about my criteria (I was jumping straight to the harness as the consequence for the start button behavior when I could have actually gone through a similar progression that mirrored what I did here). It’s also funny that a start button behavior of sorts (nose to harness opening) naturally evolved anyway. I had gotten to the point of Otis putting his nose through the harness before when I was focused just on start button behaviors, but I never was able to actually move the harness fully over him. By thinking operantly and being super duper clear about my criteria and taking ownership of setting up conditions where Otis would be successful, it forced me to break the behavior down much more. Now, when he puts his nose in the harness, I can move it over his head, and he doesn’t sprint away from me. In fact, I see so much softness in his body.
I’m definitely not an expert on dog emotions. I share this story simply to relay a moment where I got stuck and had to unstuck myself. We can’t ever separate respondent and operant conditioning. Because of that, I should always care about the associations I think my dog may make and about the behavior that is operantly being selected (because some behavior always is). In my case, thinking operantly empowered me in a way and got me into a much better problem-solving mindset than when I left that out of the equation in my effort to get my dog to like the harness. I can make arguments in either direction, but I am hopeful this approach accomplished both selecting the behavior I want while building a better association with the harness.
BTW, here are some of our favorite harnesses, collars, and leashes.*
How Can I Start Training My Puppy
First of all congratulations on your new puppy! We are so excited for you! Now if you’re feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to get started with training, don’t worry. You’re not alone! One of the most frequent questions we get from our TOC Fam is if we have any resources on how to get started with puppy training. There’s a million things to focus on, so we figured we’d start to pull together a mini guide for you with tips to start you off. This is by no means comprehensive, but we have ideas for you of how to begin with puppy socialization, putting a stop to all of that puppy biting, and training loose leash walking. PS: for even more puppy training tips, including how to think about your puppy’s routine and how to prep them for alone time, check out our Show & Tell pandemic puppies feature.
How to Properly Socialize a Puppy by Starting Simple
There’s a ton out there about puppy socialization, and it can start to feel a bit intimidating. This mini guide is certainly not the holy grail, but hopefully it gives you some helpful info and maybe a few ideas.
First, socialization is SUPER important. But please know that it is not the ONLY thing that impacts how your dog shows up in the world. Puppy genetics, environment during gestation, and early life experiences all factor into how your puppy grows up and interacts with the world around them.
The socialization sensitive period begins at three weeks and goes on until about 12 or 14 weeks (exact end is unknown and may vary based on breed). At its core, our socialization efforts are about making the world “normal” for our dogs. Dogs today live in a pretty diverse environment, so we try to slowly introduce them to the situations they’ll encounter in their lives. We are aiming to do this without creating stress -- we want them to have positive associations!
The life you plan to live with your dog may impact what priorities you have for socialization - it’s good to think about what their world will look like and help them feel comfortable in it. Dogs continue to learn after their sensitive periods, but they are most accepting of novel stimuli during these early weeks (aka these early weeks matter). Here are a few things to think about:
You want their experiences to be positive, so it is important not to force scary things on them. We want our dogs to be optimistic about new things as adults, so we want to build a history of new things being good for them!
Print Dr. Sophia Yin’s Socialization Checklist for some ideas of things to socialize!
Socialization doesn’t always have to be some huge event like a trip to the hardware store (though that can be good too depending on the pup). Sometimes it is teaching them that it's normal for objects to fall over (like in the video above)!
Avoid using food to “lure” your dog towards scary things as much as possible. They may start to think food in your hand is a “trick” and that is a tougher problem to solve.
How to Start to Socialize Your Puppy So They’re Calm Around People
One of the most important things you can do when you bring a puppy into your life is to help them build positive associations with the world around them. It’s also great to reinforce them for offering you attention. (PS: we have tons of games to help your puppy learn to offer attention in Attention Unlocked). In the video above, Jaya (who is only 13 years old!) is working with her three month old puppy, Daisy, on a city sidewalk to help her learn how to feel good and calm around people. Prior to taking their show onto a busy sidewalk, Jaya built a strong reinforcement history with Daisy for offering attention (eye contact) in lower distraction settings, which makes it a behavior Daisy is likely to offer. Here is a breakdown of what you’ll see in this video:
Out on the sidewalk, Jaya captures any eye contact that Daisy offers by simply marking and rewarding.
When Daisy spots some people walking by, Jaya waits (doesn’t nag Daisy). Daisy chooses to look away from the people and back at Jaya, so Jaya marks and rewards that eye contact.
Daisy looks back at the passing people a couple more times and each time, chooses to disengage from them and offer Jaya attention (which Jaya reinforces with a treat). Seeing a new person is becoming a cue for Daisy to offer Jaya attention.
There is SO MUCH to love about what both Jaya and Daisy are doing in this video, including:
Jaya’s marker and reinforcement timing is awesome! She does a great job of reading Daisy and chooses to give her space to process the people passing. (If she didn’t think that Daisy would disengage from looking at the people on her own, she could have marked the moment Daisy noticed the people rather than waiting for Daisy to look at her.)
Daisy is building positive associations with people (socialization!) as she learns that people predict good things for her (treats!), and she is also learning that the behavior that pays in this situation is giving her human calm attention.
Being able to engage with her human let go of the stimulus (new people), sets Daisy up well for SO many other behaviors: loose leash walking, recall, chilling outside a cafe, etc.
How To Teach a Puppy Not To Bite
If you’ve ever questioned if your adorable puppy is actually a shark in disguise rather than a dog, you are not alone. It’s super normal for puppies to nip.
Two of the most important things you can do to help with your puppy’s nipping are 1) management (aka setting up the environment to avoid a lot of that nipping when possible) and 2) sleep! Puppies often nip when they are tired, and puppies need A LOT of sleep! It’s really important to create spaces where they are comfortable and can take a snooze. And if you know they have a witching hour every night, that is where a pen and a nice frozen Kong can be your bff (just avoid the situations where you KNOW the nipping is going to be too much).
If your puppy does start nipping you (especially while you play), you can try redirecting them to a toy or a chew. I try hard not to correct biting (puppies are super impressionable). You also can’t guarantee what you are actually punishing. So often, that nipping is playful, and they are just trying to engage with you. As your puppy grows up, you are going to WANT them to want to do things with you. So see if you can help them find a better way to interact with you! If you are about to have your fourth pair of pants ripped, try to calmly separate yourself from them (perhaps just step over a baby gate) and give them some nice puppy enrichment in your place. And then take a mental note to keep trying to set them up for success, so you aren’t always having to dip out.
In addition to all the management and everyday life moments, I love to do intentional sessions where I teach a puppy how I DO want them to interact with me and my hands. So often, the question is “how do I get my puppy to stop biting my hands?!” But what happens if you change it to “How do I teach my puppy to calmly hang out when my hands come towards them?” There are lots of ways to go about this, but the video above shows you a progression with an adorable baby shark named Hana!
Getting Started With Training Your Puppy To Walk On a Loose Leash
The video above features, Otter, a standard poodle puppy, and a beloved member of our #TOCFam along with his crew, Alexis and Bunny. Like all puppies, he is learning about SO MANY THINGS (leash walking hardly scratches the surface). Even though leash walking may very well become an important part of your dog’s life, it is important to give your puppy space to explore and develop balance and fine motor skills.
Did you know that a canine’s “normal walk” is a trot with an S-curve to it?! In other words, they walk faster than we do and definitely do not walk straight. Asking a puppy to walk straight and have their head lifted up to you all the time can actually be quite wonky for their developing bodies (may lead to a really unnatural gait). It can also rob them of the ability to learn about the new world they find themselves in!
So what might loose leash “training” look like with a puppy:
Vast majority of the time outside can be spent in spaces where they can safely be off leash (or have a long line on) and are free to stop, lie down, and explore.
You may even consider using a ten or 15 foot leash for any walks you do to simply prevent pulling and to meet their needs.
In the context of these free walks or outings, keep an eye on them to see if they choose to offer you attention or check in with you. If they do, reinforce that behavior, and watch how they start to show up near you more and more! Who knows, you may get loose leash walking just from this!
You can build in really short training sessions (30 seconds to two minutes) where you simply take a step or two and then give your puppy a treat if they took a step or two with you. This allows you to build the “leash walking” behavior before you ever put that leash on (so the leash doesn’t become a steering device).
For more loose leash walking tips, check out our mini guide here.
Getting Started With How To Read Dog Body Language
Our dogs communicate through body language. Since we ask them to live in this human world, we think it’s super important to learn to “speak their language.” Keep scrolling for different examples of dogs that we’ve captured. You’ll also see our observations, so we can help you learn to read dog body language in real life.
In Dog Body Language, a Wagging Tails Does Not Equal a Happy Dog
We thought it would be fun to tackle the old misnomer that a wagging tail indicates a happy dog. In the video above, you’ll see two slow motion clips of the same dog (Otis). In both videos, Otis is wagging his tail, but the way he wags his tail and what the rest of his body is doing tell two very different stories.
Here’s what his body language actually means:
In video one (red text blocks), Otis is alert and upset (human labels) because of the mail truck that pulled up (context). You’ll notice his tail is high, and he does short, stiff wags. The rest of his body is stiff and tense, and he is making himself appear large. His mouth is closed shut and his lips are puckered as he leans forward.
In the second video (green text blocks), Otis is happy and excited (human labels). Someone he loves just showed up in the driveway (context). He is doing big, sweeping tail wags, and his whole body is loose and wiggly. His mouth is open and he has a soft face and eyes.
Tails give us a lot of information, but it is really important to look at the dog’s whole body in order to get the bigger picture. The context also helps us better understand what we are seeing. “Wagging tail = happy dog” is such a common myth.
How To Read Dog Body Language on a Playdate
Dog body language is like a dance, and it is super fun to watch! It’s also quite helpful to be able to read dogs, so you know when you might need to intervene.
In the video above, you’l see two adolescent female dogs who have known each other since they were puppies. They'd been playing around in the yard for about an hour before this video was taken. Play can look quite different depending on the dogs involved. In general, we have to look at the whole picture to determine if it is play (for example, a lot of dogs give a goofy fierce face during play that might look scary out of context with their soft, wiggly body).
In the video, we’ve labeled what you’ll observe, but it moves pretty fast (tip: if you tap and hold on the screen, you can pause). We recommend watching it once where you just pay attention to the dogs, and then again where you read the text, and then go back and see if you can spot the body language that we highlighted.
Here are some takeaways about dog body language during play that we can learn:
Play should be consensual. Often, this means dogs take turns in their “prey” and “predator” roles, but not always. Some dogs really prefer one role over the other.
You want to see loose, wiggly, soft bodies!
You want to see occasional breaks (they pause to take a break themselves).
It is often a good thing when you see mirroring (they look like they are doing the same thing).
Lack of direct eye contact & soft (probably even squinty) eyes are good signs!
If you’re ever unsure if play is consensual, it is helpful to look at the dog in the “prey” role. Do they appear frightened, or do they seem calm about the dog on top of them/chasing them? If you’re still unsure, separate them for a few seconds. Release just the dog who has been in that “prey” role to see if they choose to go back for more play. If they do, then you can release the other dog. If they don’t, then you can help keep them apart for a bit so the dog doesn’t get overwhelmed.
What To Do if You’re Not Sure About the Dog Body Language During a Playdate
If you aren't sure if the play you are seeing is mutual (typically when one dog seems to be relentlessly pursuing the other), one of the simplest ways to check is to do a simple “consent test.” To do this test, you need to get a hold of the dog who is doing the pursuing (you can gently hold and then give them a treat, stick a treat to their nose to lure them away, or recall them if you feel confident they’ll respond). The dog who has been pursued is allowed to run free -- this gives them the choice to walk away from that “play” or to return and invite play again. If the “free dog” keeps coming back for more, then you can more safely say that it is play (noting that the dog may need help getting some breaks still), and you can release the dog being held back to play. If the “free dog” walks away, they are communicating that they don’t want to participate in that play, so you can keep the dogs separate. If you aren’t sure about either dog, you can alternate which dog is the one given a choice to leave.
How a Dog Can Calm Things Down With Their Body Language
Y’all ready to watch a really socially savvy dog and learn even more about dog body language?! As background, it may be helpful to know that the little dog featured in the post above (Sully) can still exhibit some “fear reactive” behaviors (charging, barking, lunging) towards dogs. We were walking through this field on our hike when we encountered this lab. Sully barked a few times (not in video) and started to run straight at the lab (not polite). The lab’s body language diffused Sully’s tension IMMEDIATELY (literally, she stops in her tracks and moves onto sniffing). FYI this post has a play-by-play called out in text on the video - it moves a bit fast, but you can tap and hold to pause the Reel and/or watch it again to make sure you catch it all!
Here are some dog body language observations we wanted to point out:
When Sully runs at the lab, the lab LOOKS AWAY while maintaining a soft, still body. The lab is a confident dog, who reads Sully correctly and uses his body to appease her and de-escalate. The rest of the dog’s body language makes it clear that this look away isn’t done out of fear (look away can be because of discomfort).
Sully and the lab stand still while looking away for a few more seconds. Sully feels comfortable enough to move onto sniffing (and the lab correctly does not come to interact).
When Otis went to greet the lab, notice the trajectory he took (before the butterfly distracts him LOL) - it is arcing to the side. This is a softer way to greet than the trajectory Sully was initially taking (straight on).
Notice how the lab has a low head and does some sniffing as he comes to greet Otis. This sniffing can say “I come in peace” to other dogs (hence why letting your dog sniff is CRUCIAL on walks).
They do a quick nose to nose greeting. This is often done as an initial step before they sniff genitals or butts. Here, they don’t progress beyond a nose sniff. They keep it short, andOtis walks away. The lab correctly reads that no further interaction is wanted.
Dogs are highly effective communicators. And guess what?! We can take lessons from them in how people can politely greet dogs: From the side & w/out eye contact! (Obligatory note: Many/most dogs don’t actually want to be greeted by strangers despite how cute they are.)
How To Read Dog Body Language During Off Leash Greetings
Ready to break down some dog body language during off leash greetings?! The video above has three clips (numbered in the video) of off leash greetings between unfamiliar dogs on a trail. Here’s some of our observations and commentary:
Clip One: The grey dog and the white dog approach each other at a pretty casual pace (there’s no rushing on either side). The grey dog’s tail is raised up, but the rest of his body language is pretty neutral. The white dog has ears at half mast (and back a bit). Based on the rest of the body language, this feels like friendly positioning. Both dogs curve around the side to the back for a quick butt sniff (with some distance - aka no noses jammed in butts) and then they both carry on their way. This clearly isn’t a greeting between two dogs who are best friends, but it is a really cordial, polite greeting between two dogs who don’t know each other.
Clip Two: The same white dog from clip one does a big arc towards the back of a small blonde dog. The white dog’s tail and ears are at half mast (friendly, neutral). The blonde dog speeds up a little bit to move away from the white dog and does a couple of baby head turns back towards the white dog (as a way of saying “don’t approach”). The white dog does not follow her. This white dog is a dog-savvy dog in case that isn’t clear and correctly reads the blonde dog and gives a TON of space in the approach and then reads the “no” from the blonde dog loud and clear and isn’t ’t pushy.
Clip Three: A brown dog comes in with a lot of speed. He runs around the side to the back of the grey dog for a sniff. The grey dog turns to also do a butt sniff (circle dance ensues). The grey dog leaves the greeting by walking away, and the brown dog follows him with nose to butt. The grey dog allows this for 11 or 12 steps. After that, you can see the grey dog’s back curls up and its tail comes down (aka we are closed for business). The gray dog then turns to face the brown dog, and the brown dog correctly reads that and gives the grey dog space.
It is useful to be able to read dog body language in case you need to step in if your dog is being pushy or advocate for your dog if they are uncomfortable. We’ll be sure to keep adding dog body language examples to this guide.
What Is a Decompression Walk for Dogs?
Decompression walks are one of the most amazing things you can do for your dog. The term was coined by Sarah Stremming, who defines them as, “a walk where the dog is allowed freedom of movement in nature.” Ideally this is done off leash, but it can also be done on a long line* clipped to a y-shaped harness*. You can get quite creative about where you go (to the woods, fields, beaches, creeks, etc.). Keep scrolling through our guide that breaks down the benefits to decompression walks and how I’ve applied those learnings to my normal walks with my dogs.
What Are the Benefits of Decompression Walks?
Living in a human world can be really hard on dogs -- especially for those who live in cities. Imagine walking your dog on a city sidewalk using a six foot leash. They experience all sorts of sights, sounds, and smells, and quite often, aren’t able to go investigate them (they are also often working hard to stay near you instead of exploring). This type of walk often provides little opportunity for your dog to “just be a dog” and can be incredibly taxing on them. Enter the answer you may be seeking: decompression walks.
Here’s How a Decompression Walk Can Benefit Your Dog:
Decompression walks are a way for you to let your dog unwind and just be a dog. They involve so much freedom and choice and allow your dog to engage in natural dog behaviors like sniffing, digging, shredding, and climbing in a calming way.
These walks can have profound physical, emotional, and behavioral effects. They can actually set your dog up to handle their normal human world a lot better because they help dogs reset to a more neutral state.
Dogs sniff way more when they are free to move, and sniffing comes with LOTS of benefits. Sniffing lowers dogs’ pulse and has a pretty immediate calming effect on them. If you’re trying to wear your dog out, lots of sniffing can actually be the most efficient way. The part of the brain devoted to processing smells is about 40 times larger in dogs than humans, so letting your dog sniff is actually a lot of “mental exercise” that will leave them feeling tired and fulfilled.
It’s not just the dog who benefits: These walks also happen to be deeply calming for many people!
Why Decompression Walks Are the Best Thing I Did For My Dog and They’re Not Actually Training
The role of dogs in our lives has changed a TON in the past few decades. Dogs are now part of our families, and with that, comes new living conditions. At the same time, nature has selected behaviors for dogs for a LONG time, and humans have artificially selected behavior (breeding) for hundreds (and even thousands) of years. When we remove dogs from the environment those behaviors were selected for, it doesn’t mean the hardwiring for those behaviors goes away. That’s why decompression walks are so important. Kim Brophey is doing incredible work and driving important convos in this area (we are BIG fans of her L.E.G.S.® model).
Let me tell you about my dog Sully (who is in the video above). She’s a street dog from Indonesia and is fiercely independent. If you spend any time with her, it’s clear how at home she is in nature. A city walk with her used to look like this: Nose to the ground, chased every squirrel, and barked at every person and dog. It took me a little time to realize that I needed to find safe (!) ways to get her off leash access to nature (even if her “obedience wasn’t perfect,” which is often the pre-req). She came to LIFE in nature, and that matters to me.
Those behaviors that were tough on a city sidewalk suddenly made sense. Sully actively hunts. She has her nose to the ground and follows scent trails through bushes and over logs with incredible agility. I haven’t done a DNA test, but it’s so clear that this is natural behavior for her. Imagine if the only outlet she got for all those instincts was a city walk on a six foot leash. Her natural behavior could easily show up as problematic there. The more opportunities I gave Sully to express her natural behavior, the easier it became to get all those other “pet behaviors” we tend to want. Some desired behaviors came without any behavior modification work, and the training I did became a lot more effective once her needs were already met.
There are no doubt ethical considerations around why we need to remember they are dogs with species and individual needs. In addition, when we look at the whole dog (rather than thinking of them as the “pet” that the “pet industry” sells us), it goes a long way towards setting us and our dogs up for success.
What You Can Learn From Walking Your Dog
When you think about a good on-leash walk with your dog, what do you picture? For all the time we spend working to fit out dogs into our human-centric world, what would happen if we tried to fit a bit more into theirs?
If you picture people walking without dogs, what do you see? Perhaps you imagine humans walking briskly wearing headphones and their faces buried in their phones. They usually have a destination in mind (or goal for distance), and the stuff between the start and end is just the process. Now think about how dogs walk. Their ears catch every sound, their noses cover every square inch of plants ... they experience each moment. Humans label dogs who stop to watch birds or sniff every blade of grass as distracted, but maybe it’s the other way around.
What would happen if we tried to walk more like our dogs? What would it be like to feel the earth below us? What would we hear? What would cause us to stop in our tracks to simply watch with wonder? If we actively look for things that delight us, how many of them will we find?! We humans have a funny little habit of relating everything back to ourselves and using human “measuring sticks” for non-human animals. But in a lot of ways, we think dogs might actually be on a pretty cool path with the way they want to walk.
So keep training walking (and whatever else you want)! Training is FUN, helps build connection, and is important for the wellbeing of our dogs who are asked to live in this world. But what does it feel like if we open up space for our human way to not be the only way? What does a compromise look like to you?
Poet Mary Oliver famously wrote, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” This quote often gets used as a motivator to “DO ALL THE WORK!” But if you read her poem “The Summer Day,” her answer is basically to wander through fields and notice things. Our dogs might be able to help! Have you tried shifting your attention more to the environment around you (including your dog) on walks? Where is your attention? Do you slow down easily or find it tough?
The Surprising Thing I’d Rather My Dog Do on a Leash
When it comes to leash walking in general, my views have changed quite a bit over time. Both of my dogs are labeled “reactive” (Otis, the one in the video, will bark and lunge at bikes, scooters, and skateboards under the right conditions and will somewhat inconsistently bark and lunge at novel stimuli if startled). I’ve taught him that those stimuli are actually cues for him to orient to me. And by and large, that is what he will do. We can walk around the city where we live without reactions, but I generally need to support him a little bit (which I’m happy to do).
Not long ago, we were on a walk and Otis was particularly sniffy. I saw a scooter ahead and watched his body language to see if I would need to help. But he noticed it in such a soft way and was back down to sniffing again right after. I opted not to do my usual post-scooter treat because I liked his choice so much (and treats often cue Otis to really focus on me). He coped so well with all the various city things he noticed on this walk and didn’t actually need my help. He noticed changes but wasn’t scanning in search of changes. He offered me less attention than he does on other walks, but the only reason I wanted the attention in these conditions was because it’s incompatible with barking and lunging.
Over time, I may have inadvertently reinforced some of this alert, scanning behavior thinking that I was simply reinforcing his choice to orient back to me without barking (reinforced the chain). I’ve had to really think about the precise behavior I want (down to body language -- “what does calm look like?”). I now actually prefer walks where Otis sees changes in the environment and they cue him to sniff rather than to always orient to me for a treat. I think our reality will be a balance of the two, but I’m trying to be more intentional about building the soft noticing and then sniffing behavior. That may mean I need to change conditions to get the soft body language I want and build back up with that as a part of my criteria.
What works best for one dog is not necessarily what will work best for another (or even the same dog in different conditions) -- YAY NUANCE! I am having fun learning and thinking about this. Would LOVE your thoughts in the comments!
How To Train a Dog To Catch a Frisbee
We are so honored to introduce our next Experts in Residence for our Show & Tell series. Meet Anna Privette (she/her) and Ben Rimbey (he/him) from Lucky Mutt Dog Training and Fairly Odd Dogs who hung out with us for a month to share information on the wonderful world of disc dogs! (YAY frisbee time!). Keep scrolling for all of Anna and Ben’s amazing content from their Show & Tell residency with TOC!
Getting To Know Anna and Ben
Anna and Ben own and operate Lucky Mutt Dog Training and Fairly Odd Dogs. In addition to competing with their own dogs (they are the 2018, 2019, & 2020 Minnesota State Disc Dog Champions!), they also offer online courses, provide private training sessions, and offer board and train services out of their home for pet dogs.
When it comes to frisbee training, they have awesome content to share, ranging from how to get your dog interested in the disc all the way up to teaching your dog to do tricks with the disc.
Getting Started With Teaching Your Dog To Catch a Frisbee
Have you ever dreamed of teaching your dog to catch a frisbee?! Many people think that if they throw a frisbee and their dog doesn't catch it or even chase it, they'll never play. That is FAR from the truth.
First you need to get your dog interested in the disc. Most dogs do not naturally track flying objects. Many dogs just need to be taught through rolling the frisbee to chase it down and grab it like they would chase a bunny or a squirrel! In the video above, we breakdown rollers and show you how to roll the disc. In this way we can start to unlock your dog’s prey drive.
Many dogs can build a love for the frisbee through tug of war as well! From there, make it a fun game of back and forth play. This will grow your dog's focus on you and the game! Over time you slowly replace doing a “take and tug” with a little toss up of the frisbee (that we demo in the video) and then tug rewards your dog. Some dogs prefer shorter throws to get them started and other dogs like longer throws.
Once your dog is showing nice disc engagement, we like to play more interactive games where you throw the disc back and forth. So start by throwing the disc out one way and then flash the disc and once they drop it throw it the other way as a roller or air throw. Flash, drop, and toss. That’s it. It keeps constant motion and it’s really fun and engaging for you and the dog. Doing games like this will help with drive building, engagement building, and for higher drive dogs it will help them collect. Don’t forget to have fun when you’re playing. For pretty much all dogs, we avoid doing air throws at this stage. You know when your dog starts powering through catching a roller they are ready to start tracking and chasing down an air frisbee.
Skills To Make the Frisbee More Fun and Enjoyable for Your Dog
Once you build up some interest in the frisbee and your dog is getting into it and having fun with it, there are basic skills you will want to teach them. These skills will help you with control with things like being able to get the disc away from your dog, or being able to get them to drop it near you. If you get into the competitive world of discs these are helpful skills to have. A lot of these games will make it a little more fun for your dog and a little more interactive to help build connection and drive.
So how do you get your dog to drop the frisbee or give it you in your hands and drop it from a distance if you want to play with multiple discs? Well it’s actually pretty simple. One of the best ways to teach this is to get your dog excited about the disc. A lot of dogs like playing tug of war, as we outlined above.
So here’s what we suggest to teach them to drop the frisbee:
Cue a tug and have them tug the disc for a bit
Flash another disc to get a give or drop from your dog
Repeat the two bullets above.
This is a great way to get your dog to see it’s fun to give the disc back to you.
Here’s another way to get your dog to learn to drop the frisbee:
Cue tug with your dog and tug the frisbee with them
Once you want the disc back, become boring and hold the disc stiffly and close to your body
Right when they let go, mark it and reward them with another toss up toy - in this case it’s a frisbee
We like teaching dogs by using multiple discs to learn drop it. We wrote earlier about the back and forth game, where you toss it one way and you toss it the other way. It’s a fantastic engagement game also for getting them to drop it for you.
Here’s what you do for the back and forth game to teach drop it:
Toss a disc out for your dog
Call them with their name or a sound to get their attention
Flash the disc in the air and cue drop or out
The moment they drop say “yes” and reward with another throw
Bring them in for a tug, pets, and praise and show them how fun it is to play disc with you
In the video above, we also demonstrate how to teach your dog around, which is very helpful for a lot of dogs to setup your frisbee throw. TOC also breaks down the steps to teach orbit here.
Ways To Help Protect Your Dog From Injury When Playing Frisbee
A lot of people love throwing a frisbee to their dog, but most people don’t know how to keep their dog safe in the process. You might not know that you could be setting your dog up for injury, even in the backyard.
Take a minute or two to warm up your dog and get their muscles going. It’s a great way to help prevent injury. Even the fancy things that we like to do have to be done in moderation. So think about that if you are playing any game with your dog or doing any high impact activity like disc, agility, or flyball. Basically give them multiple ways to use their energy so they are utilizing multiple muscles and not using the same ones. That is a fantastic way to keep your dog safe in disc.
Some things you can work on to help with this is warming your dog up. How we like to do that is learn a few tricks with your dog. Leg weaves are a great little warm up. Doing a scoot is engaging the muscles. If you don’t know some of those things that’s fine too. You can do little switches or turns which are also great at engaging some muscles. Take a little bit of time before you play session to warm your dog up. Another great way to warm them up is to take some time to do some short throws with your dog, which are little short throws to get your dog warmed up and moving.
Another way to prevent injury is to learn how to throw better for your dog. For our dog, we typically throw lower line drives so she doesn’t leap up in the air and land hard up and down. We throw nice and low. If you dog isn’t going to lay it all on the line for a disc, you may not need to focus on this.
Lastly it’s a great idea to meet up with an animal chiropractor and or a certified animal massage therapist. If you have a dog message therapist or chiropractor they can help work out kinks for your dog and can usually suggest excellent stretches for your dog as well. We like to do our stretches after we are done playing. So we warm up to begin, monitor with them while we’re playing, and do stretches at the end. Then you will have a long life with your happy disc dog.
Are you working on teaching your dog to play with a frisbee? Maybe it’s even something you’ve been practicing in Camp TOC! How’s it going so far? Let us know in the comments!
Tips for Getting Started With Reactivity Training
When it comes to reactivity, it’s tempting to try to use BIG solutions for BIG problems. Reactivity can feel BIG -- especially when it involves barking and lunging. Like a great many things in life, “the work” doesn’t end up looking as big or flashy as we may think. It’s why most of the time, videos showing someone working through “reactivity” with their dog look fairly boring. “Boring” or “basic” can actually be fairly good indicators that you are on the right track! That’s why we put together this little guide with tips for getting started with reactivity training with your dog.
How to Figure Out When Your Reactive Dog Is Over Threshold
Thresholds is a word that gets tossed around a lot in dog training. They matter, so it makes sense. But what is a threshold?! You’re likely to hear the word from people working through a “behavior issue” (often related to reactivity, aggression, and/or fear): “Work under threshold!” But thresholds are relevant for training even when we aren’t dealing with “behavior issues.”
You can think of a behavioral threshold as a boundary of sorts -- where you move from one space, over the threshold, and into another space. Sometimes those spaces are emotional/states of being. Thresholds matter because learning happens UNDER threshold. When dogs go over threshold, they experience physiological changes that can put them into a state of fight, flight, freeze, or fool around (this is a state of reacting, not thinking/learning). So recognizing where a dog’s threshold is is vital to any type of training - building new behaviors or changing existing ones - and to a dog’s wellbeing.
What does being over threshold look like:
It depends on the dog and situation. It’s helpful to notice when your dog shifts states (often a bit suddenly). Some expressions of over threshold include:
Barking, lunging, snarling
Jumping, mouthing
Stopping taking treats
Stopping playing
Zoomies
Suddenly freezing
Being completely distracted (like you don’t exist)
It’s important to remember that thresholds are not static. Unlike the threshold of a door, our dog’s behavior thresholds move all the time -- by the situation, by the day, by the minute. In the video above, you’ll watch my dog, Sully, go over threshold and come back under threshold in the same location over 30 seconds. It is why it’s so important we observe our dogs -- so we can do the best we can to keep them under threshold. Ps: we get into this in much more detail in Attention Unlocked.
What Does Reactivity Training With Dogs Who Bark and Lunge Look Like
When it comes to desensitization or counterconditioning in dog training, we generally want our dogs to be able to notice the presence of the “trigger” but be under the threshold where that stimulus becomes aversive if we want to change their response. Some behavior is going to be reinforced in this process. What behavior do you ultimately want from your dog in the presence of that trigger? Working “under threshold” can help prevent you from reinforcing behaviors you don’t actually want strengthened.
As an aside, management is always going to be a part of the overall equation! Because we can’t always keep our dog’s under threshold, we train management procedures that we can use in real life to get us out of sticky spots! To be honest, management sometimes looks more “active” than the planned training sessions😂.)
Here’s a breakdown of the clips featuring reactivity training in the video above:
Clip One: Sully, is watching people and dogs from a distance where she can notice them without reacting. She is free to look all she wants. Ultimately, she chooses to come over and play with her human instead. COOL!
Clip Two: Miles is lying down on his mat (totally voluntary) in a Dog Trained reactive dog class with visual barriers up. That’s it. That’s the whole behavior. He is just eating on a mat. GREAT!
Clip Three: Toby is lying in a field when he notices triggers in the distance. He can look all he wants. He chooses to be silly and roll instead! WHAT A COOL BEHAVIOR around triggers (and fun new emotions with it)!
How I Navigated My Dog’s Trigger (Another Dog) In Real Life
My dog, Otis, is what the world often labels as a “reactive dog” (his triggers include bikes, scooters, skateboards, and a select few dogs). I thought it might be interesting to workshop a real life moment on our walk. For context, Otis is generally good with other dogs. But he has BIG feelings about one dog -- if he smells or hears him, he’ll bark and lunge (sometimes in spite of my best attempts at management). We live in the same apartment building as this dog, so elevators and stairway doors are TOUGH. The video above involves that dog.
Here’s a play-by-play of how we navigated Otis’s trigger in the video:
What I chose to do in this situation with Otis was specific to the exact moment. I would likely make a different choice on another day or with another dog.
I factored in not just the immediate antecedents (e.g. we were away from the hot zone of our building, my friend had my other dog’s leash, we had some cars as barriers, my friend was with us) but also the distant antecedents (we had just finished a trail walk filled with all sorts of decompression) that were likely to position both Otis and I to better cope with this trigger (yes, I factored in my own emotional state).
I thought about Otis’s history with this dog (he often reacts worse when he hears or smells the dog but cannot find him), and I looked around for possible escape routes just in case.
On most other days, I’d avoid or distract (management for the win!). But today, I not only thought Otis and I could handle seeing this dog, but it was our best option.
I consciously kept myself calm -- if I were to tense up, Otis 100% would notice.
I took a final look to locate the dog before we cleared the van (without frantically scanning), and then I watched Otis. I looked for the smallest shift in his body language to tell me he noticed the dog. I wanted him to notice the dog first before I choked up on the leash and/or grabbed treats (so I’d reinforce behavior rather than making treats predict a scary dog).
Otis can walk by most of his old triggers without treats, but when he needs support, I ALWAYS give it. He needs support with this dog.
I continued to read Otis’s body language to determine when and where to feed him to get him through it. And I talked to him to help him out.
How I Reduced My Dog’s Barking at the Front Door
Dogs bark - for all sorts of reasons. Hopefully we aren’t surprising anyone with that statement. It’s super duper normal. Some dogs bark more than others (we will spare you a convo on genetics and temperament for now). The type of barking we are talking about in this post is alert barking (perhaps even reactive barking) that dogs do when they notice some environmental change. It’s quite common for dogs to bark when they hear noises or see new things outside their home. It isn’t possible to eliminate all alert barking in every dog, but it’s very possible to reduce it in a way that works for both the dogs and the humans in the house.
My dog, Sully (featured once again in the video above), has BIG feelings about the vacuum in our apartment hallway everyday. She used to run to the door and bark like a maniac anytime she heard it. I don’t have visual access into my apartment hallway, and the vacuum doesn’t come at a set time, which makes it REALLY hard to implement any sort of management or proactive training. But as you’ll see in the video, even without much control over the setup, Sully’s behavior changed. Here’s what I did:
I made sure I had treats out on top of my dog cabinet (easily accessible).
The MOMENT that Sully noticed the vacuum, I made it rain treats on her cot. (I looked for her body perking up rather than waiting for the barking, but sometimes her bark beat me if I was doing other things -- still fine!)
I repeated this every single day.
After enough days/reps of this, I built a little pause in after she noticed the vacuum. Because the vacuum always predicts treats on her cot, she automatically walked to the cot on her own expecting them. I reinforced that choice by making it rain treats on her cot!
Now, most hallway noises cue Sully to go to her cot on her own. Sometimes she lets out a few barks at the door first before she walks to her bed. Sometimes she needs a little help from me (a quick verbal cue). I still try to reinforce this choice every time in some form!
Watch This Tiny Reactive Dog Learn To Pass Other Dogs
Meet Ella and her five month old Chihuahua, Freddy, (featured in the video above). Ella told TOC from London, “I’ve had Freddy for two months now, and he came to me very anxious of the world and mildly fear reactive to dogs (hard stares and barking, mild lunging). After a very stressful first encounter...he started barking at almost every dog he saw/hard stared at all of them. We unintentionally flooded him with an outing to a park where he barked and lunged at every dog that passed and I had to persuade my family to leave. This was a really tough time with arguments among the family thinking I was being too blunt with advocating for Freddy’s space, I was over threshold myself with all the new information I was taking in and trying my best to make sure I was doing everything right for Freddy while also giving him time to decompress. I honestly felt like giving up at many points…However with my journey learning about R+ training, I’ve realised Freddy is just Freddy, and he will bark sometimes. [His] dog reactivity has gotten a lot better with training!”
Ella hasn’t been able to simulate passing dogs in more controlled scenarios (“setups”) yet, so she's been working through situations in real life. The video shows two random dogs Freddy passed in one of those real life scenarios, where you will see all that work lead to some really cool choices from Freddy!
Here is what Ella has focused on w/ Freddy:
LAT (Look at That from Leslie McDevvit) to turn noticing dogs into a conversation (aka it leads to that beautiful behavior from Freddy where he spots the dogs and then voluntarily looks up at Ella).
Learning more management techniques for when Freddy is in a reactive red zone for too long.
We feel so grateful to share a bit of Ella’s journey with Freddy with you and our #TOCFam . Reactivity is hard, and advocating for your dog can feel exhausting. There is a learning curve for us humans too - not just our dogs. It is a REALLY cool thing to watch little Freddy out there thriving in a giant world. Little dogs deserve support too -- even if their barks aren’t as loud.
How I Trained My Reactive Dog Around People
Ready to peak into some more reactivity work in a real life setting?! Once again my dog, Sully, stars in the video above, and she is fear reactive to new people - especially men (she exhibits barking and lunging). So when a construction crew of men arrived, it meant that we got to put some of our training to use (note: I would have avoided this situation if I thought it would be too much for her).
Here is a breakdown of what you’ll see us do in this video (⚠️construction noises):
I use an up-down treat pattern when we first get outside and when we first move to watch the workers. I don’t wait for her to give me eye contact here. I just make those new people predict treats for her and reinforce her while she is still calm. I don’t take any chances at first, so I reward early and often.
As she gets comfortable, I build in a pause and wait for Sully to choose to look away from the men (and look at me) to mark and reward, so I can reinforce her for the behavior of orienting to me around men.
When a man starts walking toward us, I use a treat magnet (I put a treat up to her nose) and u-turn with Sully to create more distance because I know that she would likely bark and lunge if that man gets any closer. Once we have distance, I let her sniff and move about (and her body language is quite nice).
Here’s a summary of my thought process during the training session:
Sully is alert and close to her threshold = up-down pattern with high rate of reinforcement (aka mark and reward when she notices trigger).
Sully is comfortable = I allow Sully time to look at the men and choose to look away from them (and look at me) on her own and then mark and reward
If a trigger is getting too close and Sully will likely react = distract and create distance calmly and quickly.
My mechanics aren’t perfect (and that’s ok!), but hopefully it gives you some ideas!
We will add more content to this little guide in the future. Drop us a comment below if you are looking for something specific for us to add.
Getting Started With Resource Guarding
Resource guarding is no joke. But it doesn’t make your dog bad. In fact, it’s natural for an animal to want to retain possession of something they find valuable. That applies to humans too (seriously...stick a spoon in my ice cream and watch what happens). While it’s normal, it’s important to pay attention since it can lead to dangerous aggression. Technically speaking, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) defines resource guarding as “the use of avoidance, threatening, or aggressive behaviors by a dog to retain control of food or non-food items in the presence of a person or other animal.” Keep scrolling through our guide for tips related to resource guarding and how to help your dog through management and training.
How To Recognize Resource Guarding Through Your Dog’s Body Language
In the video above, Stanley is drinking from a water bowl at his house (Hana is the visiting dog). Hana approaches and lingers by the bowl. Stanley freezes (this is a HUGE warning sign in dog body language in general) and then snaps. What do we (humans) do? We help Hana move away from Stanley. AKA, we LISTEN to Stanley. We do not correct or scold him. That snap was inhibited. We want our dogs to be “heard” at their lowest level communications, so they don’t have to escalate.
Here are some important takeaways to remember about resource guarding body language:
1. Resource Guarding Body Language/Behavior → There is a huge range of behaviors (from “possession” to serious aggression):
a. This includes Grabbing and running away with resources, freezing, head lowering, stiff body, eyes moving but head still, growling, snarling (teeth shown), snapping, lunging, and biting.
b. If you see these behaviors, it’s a good idea to find a certified dog trainer.
c. We cannot give out specific plans for resource guarding responsibly, but here are a few things to think about (ideally, a trainer will help you create an actual plan):
Identify Resources: Make a list of things that your dog guards/has guarded/might guard (space, food, chews, people, balls, etc.)
Come up with a management plan that prevents rehearsal
Make sure everyone knows the signs and how to listen to your dog (aka give them space the MOMENT you notice any guarding!
Make sure everyone understands how to safely remove objects (e.g. high value treat toss AWAY and then do a couple fun things after the resource is removed) → If dog won’t trade, assess if it's actually that big of a deal for them to have the object
Work on classical conditioning of approach when around resource → build to desired operant behavior when approached around resource
Teach: Leave it, drop it, retrieve (helpful for stolen items)
Remember to be more of a giver than a taker 😎
Why You Should Never Punish Growling in Resource Guarding
It is important to understand that resource guarding is your dog’s emotional response to someone approaching them when they have a resource. This is why correcting your dog for growling is never something you should do. Growling is a normal way that dogs communicate (humans are the ones who have big feelings about it). If you punish growling and suppress it, you’ve not actually changed how your dog feels about someone approaching them when they have a resource -- you’ve simply eliminated the non-violent way that your dog can communicate before potentially having to escalate. It is also important to note that the resources dogs guard vary widely from food or toys and objects to people or spaces.
Resource guarding is complex and can be dangerous, so we can’t responsibly demo how to address it in a single video. In the video above we show you how Sully (a dog who used to resource guard toys from people) looks now when a person approaches her. When Sully was adopted, she would get stiff and then growl and snap if anyone walked within five feet of her when she had a toy (she would get stiff and still if you even looked at her while she had a toy). But now, she gets excited and even brings her toys to people when she sees them approach! When resource guarding is addressed the right way, you should see visible signs that your dog thinks a person approaching them (when they have their resource) is a GOOD thing! This means a dog who is soft, loose, and wiggly (no signs of stress). You will likely see signs of [happy] anticipation because they think that a person approaching them predicts good things! Create an environment where there is plenty to go around. Make people approaching predict the addition of good things, not the removal of things your dog loves.
Why Resource Guarding Has Nothing To Do With Your Dog Being Dominant
Resource Guarding behaviors have nothing to do with an animal being dominant. The function of these behaviors is to retain control of something deemed valuable. It is really critical that we listen to the least aggressive resource guarding behaviors we can spot by creating distance. If we punish the growl by coming closer or administering some sort of correction, guess what? The dog may learn growling doesn’t work. So next time they have something valuable, they may skip right over growling to something that has a history of working (like biting).
Since Sully (featured again in the video above), has a history of resource guarding behaviors when people or dogs come near her while she has something valuable, I have done a lot of work with her on this. It’s rare that she practices resource guarding in our own home now. But I ALWAYS have some management in place (e.g. she only gets chews she can eat in one sitting and she is fed in a separate room by herself if other dogs are around). This video was the result of a management fail (commotion from visiting my sister). I trained a recall away from valuable items (which she offered beautifully) for this EXACT reason (but then I failed to secure the other dogs -- fail on my part again🥴).
The moment when a dog is resource guarding is rarely the training moment (it could potentially be if there is light resource guarding and you work at a distance). First priority should be to create distance!
Ideas For Getting Started With Recall in Dog Training
When it comes to recall, in dog training it’s a topic that can strike fear, joy, and pride in people’s hearts! Truth: It can take years to really solidify recall (e.g. your dog comes to you when called) and it requires a lot of (systematic) training. In this guide, we share simple things you can do right now in everyday life to improve your dog’s recall and troubleshoot your training (note: there is much more that goes into recall, but these tips are easy and will help).
Some Simple Tips To Get Started With Recall in Dog Training
Capture attention: While this phrase may sound mysterious, it is quite simple in practice! When your dog chooses to look at you (aka you aren’t asking them to), mark that exact moment (e.g. say “yes”) and then reinforce them (e.g. give them a treat). In the video above, you will notice that it actually looks a whole lot like recall -- just without the actual recall cue (“come”). This lets you start to build a reinforcement history for orienting and moving to you (hey, that is what you need for recall!).
Warm up with easy recalls! If your first recall of the outing is when you dog is 20 yards away rolling in poop, you are asking a lot of them. Try doing a few quick recalls out of the gate when they are close to you and not really distracted! Set them up for success early and help them remember that reinforcement history.
Mark the moment your dog flips around to you (rather than waiting until they come all the way to you). The first piece of the recall behavior is turning to orient to you!
Be intentional with WHEN you say “come.” If your dog is an intense sniffer, try waiting for them to disengage from that scent just a little bit before you recall. If your dog is rolling in poop, maybe you just have to accept the bath that’s coming and recall in one of the moments when they stand up. If you constantly use the recall cue when they aren’t able to respond, the cue can actually become irrelevant to them (it is an actual science thing that happens!).
Use higher value treats! Often, we just aren’t using something that is actually reinforcing! Your dog decides what is reinforcing - not you. The only way to know if you are actually reinforcing the behavior is if you see more of it. If recall isn’t increasing, the reinforcer isn’t strong enough.
Watch What Happens When I Recall My Dogs off of a Deer
This video above is from a recent encounter with deer on our trail walk.
Here’s what we observe in the video:
Is this video perfect? No. But there’s a whole lot to celebrate. So I’ll celebrate, and take notes about the things we can keep working on. Sully’s (little dog) recall is not as good as my other dog, Otis’s. Sully only gets to be off leash sometimes. I am intentional about finding empty trails and make sure she seems like she is able to respond to me on that day before I unclip her lead. I ALWAYS have something high value if I let Sully off leash, & I immediately do an easy recall after unclipping her to make sure she knows I have the good stuff. I’d done all of those things on the day of this video.
When we ran into a family of deer and I saw my dogs start to chase, I actually only recalled Otis. Why? I didn’t think Sully could recall at that moment, so why teach her that my cue is irrelevant. Otis recalls quickly, which I expected but that still makes me happy. He has a strong chase instinct, so we’ve worked HARD on being able to recall out of chase (we’ve worked for years on this in a variety of ways).
What I like even more is that I didn’t have to ask him to hang near me after the recall - he just did! There is plenty that went into that behavior, but it's a story for another time.
When I saw Sully paused instead of disappearing into the woods (🤯), I tried recalling her. I had to help her out by repeating her name, but given the conditions, I will take it!
Sully used to never even eat outside, much less look at us. Simple, imperfect, but still awesome moments like this have years of work behind them and lots of pre-unclipping-the-leash prep that make them possible.
Troubleshooting: What To Do if Your Dog Doesn’t Come When Called
Let’s chat about what happens in real life when your dog doesn’t respond to your recall cue. If your dog is like Sully, they may return to you two minutes after you call them covered in poop! What do you do?!
Here are some ideas to get started with troubleshooting:
Remember, your dog isn’t giving you the metaphorical middle finger (even if it feels like it). They’re behaving based on their genetics and learning history.
When you unclip their leash, you’re making an agreement to hold yourself accountable for whatever happens (not your dog). Unclipping the leash means you’re comfortable that your dog can realistically offer the behaviors you need in those conditions, or you’re in a safe environment where you’re okay with the consequences if they can’t.
Pause and think about whether you want to use (or repeat) your recall cue. If you don’t think it is realistic for your dog to respond, don’t use it (or repeat it) because you’ll just teach them that it’s irrelevant.
Just wait. (Depending on your dog and the situation, you may actually want to run away from them.)
As they move towards you, talk to them in a happy voice! Even if you’re saying “you naughty little thing, I can smell you from here,” say it in the voice/tone you praise them with! A “come OR ELSE” tone isn’t inviting.
When they do show up, keep praising them (or at least talking in a happy tone) and give them a treat!
If you are wondering iwhy I would reinforce Sully for “ignoring me and rolling in poop,” (in the video above) it’s important to recognize that isn’t the behavior we’re really looking at. She already made the choice to ignore my cue and go find the poop (a choice which has ALREADY been reinforced by getting to roll in it) -- that ship has sailed. If I were to scold her when she showed up, the behavior that I’d most likely punish is walking towards me. That’s definitely not what I want. So I remember the agreement I made when I unclipped. Then I talk happily, give a treat, and plan a training session to work on the recall gap I just found.
When You Recall Your Dog, Are They Coming Just Because You Asked
When you call “come” out to your dog and they run to you, did they come just because you taught them to listen to you? We thought it might be fun to peek under the hood of what goes on when we “ask our dogs to do things” (believe us, this is the smallest peek under the hood possible -- behavior is a complex topic LOL).
Let's look at these things we call “cues.” Some people call them commands -- we don’t for a number of a reasons, but we aren’t gonna get distracted by that shiny object right now 🤣. Have you ever heard someone say, “I said sit, so my dog should sit.” Why should saying “sit” lead to your dog sitting? What should your dog do if you say “pancake”? Or “starfish”? Perhaps you’re thinking that your dog doesn’t know what those words mean but does know what “sit” means. If we’re in the behavioral level of analysis, the meaning of words is a funny thing. What does it look like when your dog “knows what a word means”? And even if we say your dog “knows what a word means,” why would that lead to a specific behavior? If this feels like a jumbled mess, you’ll be glad to know we’re about to untangle it!
According to Dr. Susan Friedman, a cue is an “antecedent stimulus that signals the availability of reinforcement, contingent on the appropriate behavior.” A cue does not tell your dog to do something (per se). A cue tells your dog that a reinforcer is now available IF they do a specific behavior. in other words, a cue tells them that a behavior-consequence contingency is now in play.
So if the cue is not what’s “getting them” to do the behavior, what is?! Past consequences for performing that behavior in those conditions! This is why people say “reinforcement drives behavior.” If you want to understand current behavior, look at past consequences (in those conditions).
Why Breaking Down Recall Into Components Can Help You Strengthen It
The recall end goal for many people is likely that their dog runs to them and stations (hangs out). But did you know recall is actually multiple behaviors linked together that occur after a single cue (e.g. “come”)? Thinking about those components is quite helpful because we can train the parts separately and then chain them all together! And for a bit of nuance, even as your dog’s recall strengthens, you may choose to lower criteria by only looking for the first part of the recall behavior if the environment is really tough!
Recall takes consistent work. There are so many recall games you can play, and even within those games, you can adjust which component of behavior you focus on. I can play the same cookie tossing pattern game and mark and toss the moment my dog turns to me or mark and toss when they get all the way to me -- two very different things. I find getting a super strong whip around when my dog hears the cue to be incredibly helpful to the larger recall behavior, so I spend a fair bit of time there! When you intro tougher distractions in training, marking for just turning away from the distraction can set your dog up for future success!
The conditions you recall your dog in change. Asking your dog to come from ten feet away in your living room vs. asking them to come (when you’re 40 yards away) as they’re chasing their dog friends are two wildly different asks. For harder recalls (they could be harder for any number of reasons), I tend to mark earlier in the recall chain and use my reinforcers to bring them the rest of the way in.
There is SO much more we could get into, but we’re going to leave it here. We will keep adding to this little recall guide from time to time and we hope that it’s helpful!
Getting Started With Cooperative Care in Dog Training
When you watch a video of cooperative care in action (aka a dog calmly opting in to getting their ears cleaned by sitting on a mat first), it can be easy to think, “That is amazing but my dog would never do that.” Maybe you aren’t practicing cooperative care as much as other members of our #TOCFam, but you can 100% incorporate some cooperative care and start buttons into your life and reduce a lot of stress for you and your dog!
Cooperative care is not just kind but also extremely effective. If you give your dog a choice to opt out of something (and reward them for it), they actually opt in more! Why? ✨Control is a primary reinforcer for behavior✨ just like food, water, shelter, etc. When we give our dogs choice, it actually helps us get the behavior we want faster (in addition to being humane). Keep scrolling for more ideas for starting to simplify your life with your dog through cooperative care.
Getting Started With Cooperative Care For Grooming
For a lot of dogs, grooming is a part of life. But it doesn’t have to be stressful -- for you or your dog! One of the best ways to make grooming easier is to use a start button behavior (or consent behavior), which is essentially a way for your dog to give consent.
Recently we shared the video above featuring Moose, a four month old puppy -- not some experienced adult dog! Cooperative care can look fancy, but don’t let that intimidate you. You can work to build this type of cooperation with any dog!
Moose’s start button/consent behavior is a chin rest on the chair. Nobody cues him to do this behavior; instead, this is something he offers. He understands that if he puts his chin on the chair, it will lead to grooming and then treats because that is the association that was made for him. Perhaps most importantly, he doesn’t feel forced into doing a chin rest. He gets a treat for saying no too! How does he say no? By not giving a clear, enthusiastic yes! If you watch closely at the end of the video, you will spot how rewarding his pause (his “no”), leads to a very fast yes right after.
Note: Moose may be young here, but he understands how start buttons work since they have been incorporated into his training since the moment he came home at nine weeks. He also already had a trained chin rest behavior (PS: You can train your dog to do a chin rest in the Tails of Connection Challenge), so this setup made chin rest a likely behavior for him to offer. Our hope is that this video gives you some ideas or gets you curious about incorporating start buttons!
The Magic of Giving Your Dog Control Through Start Buttons
Recently we shared a start button story on Instagram that got a lot of interest, so we put together the video in the post above as a fun way to show the magic of giving your dog control. This isn’t a demo or tutorial, but it shows some cool behavior naturally evolving!
Here’s a play by play of what we featured in the various clips:
Clip One: A few weeks ago, we shared this same clip in our stories of a desensitization session Christie was doing with one of her dogs, Otis, and a suitcase. Otis is fine with suitcases in general, but she wanted to get him comfortable walking beside a rolling one (for future travel). She used a nose target as a start button to roll the suitcase (aka she only rolls the suitcase after he targets her hand). What happened was kind of fun to see: he naturally started offering a different behavior as a way to say “don’t roll the suitcase.” He would look away when he didn’t want the suitcase rolled (and then look back at Christie because he knows that “no’s” get rewarded too!) and boop her hand when he was ready for her to roll it. This session told Christie really quickly that he didn’t feel great about her moving the suitcase, so she stopped (and took a few steps back in our training).
Clip Two: Some of you asked how a start button might evolve naturally (as opposed to the “don’t start button” that Otis showed with the suitcase). This clip shows a start button naturally evolving while bringing clippers out with one of Christie’s dogs, Sully. Here the start button behavior is a paw raise.
Clip Three: This clip shows a start button for bringing nail clippers out naturally evolving with Otis. His behavior is super subtle -- sticking his tongue out!
These clips show how quickly dogs learn the consequences of their behavior. With that understanding, they have the ability to opt in or out of things by simply offering or not offering a behavior. This rocks because it allows us to get a real glimpse into HOW THEY FEEL about something. Whether you are using a trained start button behavior or letting one naturally evolve, empowering your dog is a cool thing to do! We’re using pieces of a process from Emelie Johnson Vegh and Eva Bertilsson of Carpe Momentum on developing start buttons in clips two and three.
Getting Started With Tooth Brushing Through Cooperative Care
Have you ever thought about the behaviors that your dog need stop be able to do in order for you to brush their teeth? Standing still is the main one (though you could certainly break this down more). What about the behaviors that you will need to do in order to brush their teeth? This depends on how you go about it, but here are a few: Bend over, reach towards their face, touch their face, lift their mouth, pick up toothbrush, put toothpaste on toothbrush, bring toothbrush towards their face, touch toothbrush to their teeth, move your arm back and forth to brush their teeth, etc.
We have to thank the incredible Laura Monaco Torelli for really helping us think more about all of human behavior (Christie was lucky enough to get mentored by her)! By thinking about human behavior, we know how to split criteria better (aka break “brushing my dog’s teeth” down into smaller component parts).
Here’s a breakdown of the play-by-play in the video featured above:
Otis and Christie have a solid dialogue going that they built up over time. He has full control over whether or not he stations in front of her (and Christie will only begin my behavior if he stations), so his behavior in this framework gives her LOADS of info.
She’s only doing small components of the teeth brushing behavior.
Her reinforcement involves increasing distance from her (to relieve any pressure he may have felt and give him a choice to opt back in).
She threw in some fun, easy behaviors.
The entire session was five click points. Super short.
Some Takeaways (apply them to more than just teeth!):
We can usually break our training down MUCH more than we think. Try listing out every single tiny thing you (or whomever else) will do to train. That gives you ideas about how to split criteria in your training.
It’s okay for your training not to look perfectly linear. Is touching the toothbrush to Otis’s back an actual step Christie will take when she brushes his teeth for real? No. But it gives Otis information in a less intrusive way. (By the way, there are lots of other things Christie does, but she budgeted only five click points for this session.)
Laura Monaco Torelli is next level good at this stuff (she makes this look so smooth when she does it with wild animals). She is a great person to learn from
How Training Your Dog Is Like Practicing for Carnegie Hall
Looking back, it’s hard to believe I spent so much of my life devoted to furiously tapping my fingers on a sterling silver cylinder. All I seemed to think about for the better part of twenty years were things like vibrato, staccato, and legato. Yes it's true, I'm a recovering semi-professional flute player.
During college, my stomach knotted with shame and guilt when I didn't practice the flute for at least five hours a day. Up until about a month ago, I couldn’t remember the last time I picked up a flute, let alone felt remorse for not memorizing Mozart’s Flute Concerto in D Major. This summer my sister-in-law asked me to play at her wedding, and after a ten year hiatus, I dusted off my flute to serenade her guests. Preparing for that “comeback performance” was the context I needed to finally have the breakthrough I’d been seeking in a different activity: training my anxious and extremely high-energy dog, Stanley.
Why I Wish I Could Have a Training Do-Over With My Pandemic Puppy
Stanley is the first dog I’ve raised as an adult. He opens drawers in our house for fun, so he definitely keeps me on my toes! Photo Credit: Juliana DeWillems
I should start by saying that Stanley, who has a face like a black and white cookie, is a 35-pound mini-sheepadoodle (a cross between an Old English Sheepdog and a Miniature Poodle). From the beginning, he struggled with health issues and was incredibly nippy. He would corner my husband Alex and jump and bite him playfully, sometimes breaking the skin. He was also very reactive to noises and cars, dangerously lunging and barking at them when we were walking down the street. And then around the house, we felt like we couldn't trust him. He would routinely open drawers, paw at doors, or steal human things like socks to run around with. When we finally had to crate him because we weren’t able to watch him constantly, he would demand to leave by barking endlessly.
Alex and I spent months working with Stanley and some very wonderful and patient virtual and in-person dog trainers. Still, we were at a breaking point. We trained him for three meals a day, hiked with him on an extremely long leash (called a long line*, which is designed to give him freedom to explore and sniff) and gave him puzzle toys (to make eating his food a brain teaser). Yet, he still felt like such a hard dog.
How a Daily Training Method Helped Us Find a Breakthrough
Even though Stanley is extremely high-energy, he is incredibly affectionate. He wakes Alex and I up with kisses every morning and he cuddles next to us in bed all night. Photo Credit: Juliana DeWillems.
As the co-founder of an online dog-training community, I was embarrassed that I was failing miserably at training my own dog. At that point, my co-founder, Christie Catan, suggested that I reach out to Pet Harmony to work with one of their owners, Emily Strong. Emily is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) and a Shelter Behavior Affiliate (SBA) and she co-authored the book Canine Enrichment for the Real World. So we threw a Hail Mary and signed up for 20 back-to-back, hour-long dog-training sessions (through something called the “Intensive Behavior Package”). Over a period of several weeks, we hoped Emily could help make our life with Stanley more manageable.
When we met Emily over Zoom, much to our surprise she explained that Stanley would not be part of our lessons. Instead she listened patiently to all of the daily problems we had with him, and gave us bite-sized exercises in a very organized spreadsheet to help us start to find solutions.
So we started training each day in very short sessions (a few minutes here and there) where we covered many different things. Each night Emily would review our progress, holding us accountable. Slowly and much to our surprise and delight, Stanley started to transform.
How Classical Music Helped Me Train My Dog
One day, halfway into our sessions, Emily told us about her former career as a music journalist and that she had studied piano in college. The coincidence of our similar backgrounds (I also studied classical music and worked in journalism) got me thinking about how a person’s experience as a musician could translate to the practice of training dogs.
It was around the same time that I was suddenly preparing to play in the wedding. During my practice sessions, I reflected a lot on practicing the flute growing up. I remembered starting every morning playing what seemed like endless scales (little pattern exercises to get your fingers moving in coordination with your mouth and tongue). Then I would move onto what’s called long tone exercises where I literally played a single note for what felt like forever. Next I would play these technical exercises called etudes that almost felt like mini pieces to perform, usually with something tricky for your fingers to figure out. And at the end, I would work on the repertoire I was actually planning to perform in the orchestra or for a solo recital or an audition. But that didn't typically mean I would play the entire solo or piece all the way through. Oftentimes I would focus on small sections or measures, working on a particularly difficult spot that was tripping me up.
When my sister-in-law asked me to play the flute at her wedding (pictured here), I was initially reluctant because I hadn’t really practiced, let alone performed, in ten years. I reached out to my college flute professor, Linda Chesis, for advice. She encouraged me to do it, writing, “It may not be perfect, but it will be heartfelt and that’s what counts!” Photo Credit: Zofia Crosby.
And after all that, when I finally strung all of the measures together in a performance, when I was so nervous my fingers were shaking and my knees were knocking, my muscle memory would kick in and it would all just work.
With only a week to prepare for the performance this summer, I didn’t have the same time to be as methodical. However, in the the famous flute solo that I selected - Concertino by Cecile Chaminade, I did break down the phrases that were tripping me up into small chunks. Rehearsing those small sections of a few notes at a time really helped me pull off the performance.
In the funny way your mind sometimes draws the perfect connections, thinking back on this experience made it clearer to me how I could be more successful in training Stanley -- by breaking things down each day just like I did as a classical musician. In high school and college, I accomplished big things (aka playing in front of hundreds of people, auditioning for and winning prestigious solos) and somehow I forgot that the way I got there was by taking baby steps towards my goal every single day.
Before we met Emily, Alex and I were convinced that we should see results with Stanley because we trained him every day, but we didn’t realize that we weren’t breaking things down into small enough pieces for him to be successful. So, when we started training Stanley to do a variety of things, and with Emily’s guidance, our daily training routine began to take shape.
We told Emily that a major goal of ours was to have Stanley relax on his own in the house when we were working during the day. As a result, she had us work on the tiny steps it would take to achieve what was actually a quite complex goal. For example, we began spending a few minutes each day training him to rest on his bed, using something called the Relaxation Protocol. When he got up and decided he was done with training, we'd move onto one minute of muzzle training, with the eventual goal that he could wear a muzzle in our yard and sniff and explore on his own to relax, but not eat everything in sight (he has a sensitive stomach and is a little goat!). After that we would practice crate training for a few minutes, so he’d eventually have another place to relax - especially when we’re not home.
Methodical Training in Music and With Dogs Requires Intense Dedication and Focus
The part of flute playing that really challenged me was when I had to dig into my right brain and think of the entire piece I was playing. When something was very hard to play, I was fixated on what my fingers and mouth technically had to do just to get by (left brain). But in the end, the most important thing was the story I told with each phrase and if that made sense in the context of the overall piece. Telling a cohesive story with a performance is what makes it memorable and special. In an orchestra that got even trickier, since I had to work with other musicians and the conductor and fit my artistic vision into theirs.
The thing is dog training is a lot like that. How can Stanley be expected to perform a recital (walk on a crowded city street or "behave" aka relax for hours when we have people over) without rehearsing in a methodical way? I got Stanley and thought that training him to settle or rest quietly at home would help him perform when visiting my in-laws’ house. Somehow in the process I forgot that practicing the flute in a basement dormitory practice room that smells like mold did not mean I would be able to perform just as well in Carnegie Hall. Not only did I need to practice settling with him in all sorts of environments, I also needed to break settling way down into tiny steps in those different locations to help him be successful. Dogs have emotions and need to learn and practice to perform in different settings just like we do.
At the same time, training a dog and practicing the flute at a very high level requires enormous patience and persistence. Alex admittedly has never done something this methodical and I find him still wanting results much faster. As a result, I still take on most of the daily training. Although at Emily’s urging I’ve started prompting Alex to remember what Emily’s taught us and to keep treats on him at all times (Emily had us buy some nifty treat aprons for the house on Amazon).*
Today I have a lot more empathy for Stanley and for myself as his primary handler. While we haven't quite worked our way up to performing Rachmaninoff, every day our baby steps add up into small signs of progress. I've learned to celebrate the imperfections too (like when he ignores me and plops down at a stranger's feet to demand belly rubs), because those are the little details that make his performance special.
*[Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning TOC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through our links, at no cost to you.]
Ideas for Getting Started With Loose Leash Walking Training
Loose leash walking (LLW) can be a really tough behavior to teach your dog. It can honestly even take years of daily work to get your dog to choose to engage with you on a leash because the world around them is SO fascinating. That’s why we put together this little guide of all of our favorite ideas for ways to train our dogs to walk on a loose leash.
Why Is Loose Leash Walking Such a Hard Behavior To Train?
Once dogs get past a certain puppy age, they tend to walk faster than humans. Beyond that, the world out there is filled with lots of amazing things (smells, social interactions, things to chase, etc.). Heck, for most dogs, forward movement itself is reinforcing! Dogs are skillful learners, so if they pull right before they get to air scent or pull as they take a step forward, guess what gets reinforced? Pulling! It has a way of building a big reinforcement history really quickly as the behavior that works to access all the awesome things they enjoy outside.
Recently we worked with Lance (featured in the video above), a 10-month old and 125-pound Great Pyreneese. Lance pulls to say hi to people (because he adores them) and to sniff things on his walks. When a dog that size pulls, simply trying to “not move” isn’t going to work (though it doesn’t work super well for a lot of dogs -- even those under 125 pounds - because the human body is bendy, so often the pulling still gets dogs a few inches as their human’s shoulder moves in its socket).
We worked with Lance on choosing to walk with his human around his yard. His reinforcement was a treat in the grass, which means he got to sniff too! And what got him access to the reinforcer? Choosing to walk by his human. Since people are FUN to him, we taught him that people are a cue to automatically look at his human. This was all done out of the context of a leashed walk because we needed to get the behavior in order to reinforce it!
Our List for Getting Started With Loose Leash Walking Training
We put together a little checklist of things you can work on with your dog to train loose leash walking and we’ve broken down many of these things below in our guide if you keep scrolling! BTW, we’ll keep adding to this page as time goes on.
Teach your dog the walking behavior out of context and slowly progress (aka start indoors)
Focus on reinforcing your dog for correct behavior before they make mistakes (this means proactive and high rate of reinforcement at first)
Train a “redirection cue” you can use before your dog pulls
Have a plan for switching from food to naturally occurring reinforcers
Prevent your dog from practicing the pulling behavior
Train your dog to pay attention to you around distractions that are separate from walking
Teach functional reinforcers like “go sniff” or “go say hi”
Meet your dog’s needs first! (Not on a six foot leash, ideally)
What It Means To Meet Your Dog’s Needs First Before Loose Leash Walking Training
Imagine being cooped up inside all day and then immediately expected to stay on a sidewalk in a slow walk when you finally go out. SO HARD! Did you know that if you meet your dog’s needs first, so many problems will vanish?
Recently we worked with a 10-month old golden retriever named Daisy (featured in the video above in this section). She is a sweet girl, who has started to pull way more as she’s entered adolescence (yay teens). Daisy is lucky and has an awesome family with incredibly realistic expectations for a teenage pup. Here is what they do to meet her needs before they train loose leash walking.
For the most part, they skip non-essential city walks on a six foot leash (it ends in frustration for all parties).
They are lucky to live one and a half blocks from great hiking trails. For now, they are providing some cues for Daisy to tell her she is free to pull and do whatever she wants on the way TO the trails (realistic expectations).
They let her explore, climb, sniff, go in the creek etc. in the woods (where they also capture attention).
Then on the one and a half blocks home, they give their “walk with me” cue and practice the type of walking they want to become a habit. (Fun fact: They don’t have to do anything to get the good walking now! She just offers it now that her needs have been met!)
Slowly (and as errorlessly as possible), they are also building good leash walking behavior on the way TO the trail. They’re teaching Daisy that the behavior that leads to walking into the woods (which is what is naturally motivating her) is walking with a loose leash (rather than pulling).
How Teaching Your Dog to ‘Go Sniff’ Can Help With Loose Leash Walking
If you have a really sniffy dog, being able to cue “go sniff” as a reinforcer can actually make it MORE likely that you can get their attention and walk on a loose leash! Now when they give you attention while you’re walking, part of your reinforcement can be to simply release them back to sniffing (this is called a functional reward).
Recently we taught the adorable little spaniel, Poppy (featured in the video above in this section), the “go sniff” cue. Like a good spaniel, Poppy has a strong nose and loves to use it (and that is GREAT!). Rather than fighting that nose, Poppy’s human can use what she already wants to do outside (sniff) to reinforce behaviors they want to be able to get (some attention). To teach Poppy, we went to an area she loves to sniff and moved away from it slightly (monkey grass is sniffy heaven). She captured a little attention and then would cue “go sniff” and walk towards that monkey grass (where Poppy was likely to sniff anyway). It only took a few repetitions for her to figure out exactly what “go sniff” meant! Note: Sniffing is super important. Teaching “go sniff” shouldn’t be in lieu of giving a dog ample time to freely move and sniff (crucial for their wellbeing).
What the Heck Does It Mean To Prevent the ‘Pulling Behavior During Loose Leash Walking’
If you have been around dog trainers, you’ve likely heard someone say that you need to prevent your dog from practicing the pulling behavior while you teach them loose leash walking. We were chatting with someone about this recently, and they said, “Well, how am I supposed to prevent the pulling? The whole reason I am training the loose leash walking is because I want the pulling to stop! It feels like a chicken-egg problem.”
When training a loose leash walking behavior, we are really trying to build up a big reinforcement history with our dogs for walking near us. In the beginning, that usually means using treats to help us work up to letting the natural reinforcers take over. The world is filled with potential reinforcers - smells (as we just highlighted), grass to roll in, people to say hi to, etc. When we work on loose leash walking, we want to make sure that the behavior that happens before our dogs access those valuable things is a loose leash behavior = not pulling. Because whatever behavior happens right before our dogs get to sniff that plant is the behavior that gets reinforced.
Here are some ideas to prevent the pulling behavior while training loose leash walking:
Be super thoughtful about where you walk. Skip walking routes that are “pull traps.”
Walk your dog with a ten or 15 foot leash* to give them more space to move around without hitting the end of the leash (potentially even longer depending on where you walk).
Train a “redirection procedure” that you can use before they pull. This gives you a way to tell your dog to loop back to you if they are nearing the end of the leash but haven’t pulled yet.
Meet their broader needs outside of the context of a six foot leash walk.
Rent a SniffSpot where you can walk through nature without a leash or find some hiking trails where your dog can safely be off leash or on a long line.
Meet their initial immediate needs (as we highlighted previously) before your walk (e.g. game of tug inside, flirt pole shenanigans, food puzzles, scent games, etc.). This can reduce the frenetic energy that can show up at the beginning of walks.
If you encounter a tough distraction, pull off to the side and give them treats as the distraction passes. (In other words, opt out of some of the leash walking tests life throws at you until your dog is ready!)
Know what your dog tends to pull towards and observe their body language on the walk. You can release them to access it BEFORE they pull you (may mean you have to pick your pace up, so be thoughtful about where you use this) so that the loose leash behavior is what gets them access.
Proactively reinforce the leash behavior you want (aka feed often for loose leash)! Yes, this is training the desired behavior, but if you do this, it also can prevent some of the unwanted behavior.
Most of our ideas above for prevention are centered around putting your dog in situations where pulling isn’t even possible. Beyond that, it’s about prepping ahead to have a trained behavior you can rely on to prevent that pulling and become a super skilled observer on your walks. Then you can skip hard distractions and release your dog early to others (e.g. “go sniff” or “go say hi”). Soon(ish🥴) that loose leash walking habit will form!
Some Tips For Structuring a Loose Leash Walking Training Session
When you’re structuring a loose leash walking training session like the one above with Hana (who was a five month old puppy at the time), there are some key things to consider so you set your dog up for success. Here’s what we recommend thinking about before you start training:
LOCATION: It matters. Train in a spot like a parking lot that’s away from some of the usual tough city distractions but still around some distractions. The right location can be the sweet spot between offering opportunities to grow and keeping your dog successful.
CHOICE: Give it to the dog. We don’t recommend nagging or yanking your dog. If your dogs stops to do something else, just wait. Then when they choose to re-engage, reinforce that!
GO SNIFF: Just as we highlighted above, it can be a powerful reinforcer. Dogs need to sniff, and we are not a proponent of denying them access to do that. But if you are giving your dog enough other opportunities to freely sniff, you can create a setup where you can use a release to go sniff as a way to reinforce your dog for walking with you (rather than pulling to sniff). Please be thoughtful about how you do this.
ENGAGEMENT: If you want it, you should give it to your dog. If you walk your dog and stare at your phone or are making a million lists in your head, it makes it less likely that a dog learning to walk on a leash is going to engage with you. You don’t need to turn into a total ball of energy (but you totally can 😅), but being present matters. Chit chat with your dogs a lot as you walk and frequently change directions.
How Attention Games Can Help With Loose Leash Walking
Attention games make it fun for your dog to choose you. These games are all about choice, and have a lot of freedom and fun built in. They foundational for loose leash walking so that your dog chooses to engage with you vs. the rest of the world while they’re walking on a leash.
Our friend Jaya (who is only 13 years old!!) has been training her pup, Daisy (featured in the video above in this section), who is an adolescent golden retriever, since the day she came home. When Daisy was just a little baby, Jaya played a lot of engagement and attention games to make it fun for Daisy to choose to pay attention to her. From that foundation, Jaya started working with Daisy to teach her how to walk on a leash. Now that Daisy is hitting her “teenage years,” that adolescent brain has created some new challenges on walks -- namely that Daisy wants to use her newfound size to pull towards things she wants to smell!
Rather than immediately practicing the type of leash walking they may use on the busy city street where they live (with narrow sidewalks), Jaya went back to basics. She played the types of games she practiced with Daisy when she first came home. Sometimes teenage dogs need a little fun refresher before working through particularly hard distractions.
How You Can Try What Jaya Did With Your Dog:
Play a simple little engagement game where your dog gets reinforced for choosing to orient towards you.
Move right into a simple walking game! In this game, treats are tossed out so that your dog gets a chance to sniff a little bit and has the opportunity to CHOOSE to move back to walk with you.
Note: In the video above, Jaya wasn't actually saying or doing anything to try to get Daisy’s attention (though she was changing directions a lot to keep the game interesting!), and Daisy was free to move anywhere. But where did Daisy continue to CHOOSE to go? Back to Jaya! With very little effort, Jaya reminded Daisy that it is fun (and pays) to walk with her. Now she can start working through some tougher distractions!
PS: If you’re looking for more attention games so that your dog will voluntarily pay attention to you indoors and outdoors, around all sorts of distractions, check out our course Attention Unlocked, our self-guided video e-course that stars Juliana DeWillems (CPDT-KA, KPA CTP, CBCC-KA, CDBC).
*[Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning TOC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through our links, at no cost to you.]
Training Tutorial: How to Teach Your Dog to Orbit Around Your Body
Editor’s Note: This week we’re so excited to bring you a special training tutorial from our friend Emily Anderson, who has been training professionally for seven years. She lives with her two dogs Ripley (a Border Collie and Terrier mix) and Nova (a cattle dog and hound mix).
✅Step by Step: How to Teach Your Dog the Orbit Trick
Orbit is a fun, impressive looking trick where your dog rotates around, or “orbits,” your body, while walking backwards. It requires a lot of patience from you, as well as some really good rear end awareness from your dog. This trick is great to build into your next freestyle training routine if that is your thing!
Step One: Make sure your dog has good rear end awareness, which is critical for mastering this trick.
There are a couple of activities that you can do to build more rear end awareness:
Work on getting your dog to move backwards (try teaching them to back up and target something behind them).
Work on getting them to pivot - aka taking steps in a circle (try having them pivot while standing on top of a food bowl or a book).
Focusing on building solid rear end awareness is going to benefit your dog in so many ways and will ultimately play a big role in how easily you can teach this trick to your dog!
Step Two: With food in both of your hands, work to lure your dog backwards around your body in a circle (reward multiples times along the way).
To start, focus heavily on luring your dog with food through the motions. You’ll want to start to introduce your dog to the feeling of walking backwards around your body and maintaining a somewhat tight circle in the process. To do this:
Start with a treat in both hands. A medium value treat is probably best, but you know your dog! Just make sure it’s interesting enough to follow for a lure, but not so exciting that your dog gets frustrated.
Line your dog up on the side of your body where you’d like them to begin the orbit (I start on my left side).
With the treat at their nose, you’re going to bring your hand from their nose back towards their outside ear (so the treat would travel from their nose to their left ear, in this case).
Make sure they are following the treat lure, and as you move your hand toward their ear and out away from your hip, they should be stepping backwards.
The number of times you reward is really going to be dependent on your dog’s comfort with walking backwards; but, you want to make sure your rate of reinforcement is high to help them understand what you’re looking for and reduce any confusion or frustration! I would recommend rewarding your dog as they line up at your side and take their first step backwards, behind your body, and on your opposite side.
Always try to finish the orbit back on the original side where you started. Don’t forget to use your marker when they get there (I use a YES instead of a click from a clicker because of the treat luring) and give your dog a treat.
Keep working on this, so your dog builds confidence and becomes more fluid following the lures around your body.
As your dog begins to gain confidence with this step, add your verbal cue before you begin luring (I say “orbit”). Some people may prefer to use a hand cue rather than a verbal cue.
You can begin adding in multiple rotations and incorporating some speed (still using lures). When you add in multiple rotations, still reward at each necessary step! I like to use a “good!” or “go!” to encourage my dog to continue doing what they’re doing, and a “yes!” on the final rotation.
As I work on adding rotations, I also look for my dog to begin to take independent steps. While still keeping treats in both of my hands, I start to move the lure away from their nose and see if they can follow the lure from more of a distance.
💡 Tip: Starting with some type of barrier behind you or beside you (like a wall or a chair) can help with creating a tighter circle if your dog is backing away.
Step Three: Once your dog can confidently orbit around your body following treat lures in both of your hands, move to using only one lure to get them to complete the rotation.
Begin by getting your dog to start orbiting around you using a treat lure.
When your dog gets behind your back, instead of switching to a treat lure in your other hand, just use your hand (with no food) as a lure to get your dog back around to where they started.
When your dog is ready, try to get them to complete two or three orbits around your body. You can use a continuation marker like good or simply some praise along the way, but when they complete the two or three orbits, use your final marker followed by a treat to let them know they are done (I use “yes!”).
Our goal here is the same as above - look for independent steps where you don’t need to lure as heavily. As you add rotations, remember not to push your dog too quickly!
Step Four: The final step - no need to use treats!
When I fade away from using a treat lure, I still lure with my hands pretty heavily. You may even need to go back to using both hands to complete the rotation here. That is totally okay!
Go back to rewarding on your side after a single rotation, really building your dog’s confidence and understanding.
And then repeat the steps above, but with no treats!
Again, I like to use verbal praise or “good” and then “yes!” and reward when they complete the final orbit and have returned to the starting side.
As they gain that understanding, start to make your hand luring less obvious and work towards using a verbal cue only (trainer preference!).
🔧 How to Troubleshoot Teaching Your Dog to Orbit
This can be a difficult trick, and can take time! It took my dog, Nova, two years, on and off, for it to really click and I have still not completely faded her from one treat lure. You may need to bounce back and forth from two treats, to one, to hand luring, back to two treats, especially as you increase the difficulty here! Don’t rush your dog - and most importantly, have fun!
To learn more about Emily (who is launching her own professional training business soon) and her life with Ripley and Nova, follow her on instagram here.
Help: How Do I Get My Dog to Stop Biting Things Around the House?
Editor’s Note: We get a lot of questions from dog parents in our Slack community about how to get their dogs to stop biting and playing with household items like toilet paper and paper towel rolls. In order to get help, we turned to our friend and professional dog trainer, Juliana Willems, to write the special guest blog below.
It’s very common for dogs to steal, destroy, chew on, and play with household items like paper towel rolls and toilet paper. Though this behavior can be hilarious at first, it eventually becomes incredibly frustrating. I’m going to help you with an easy way to tackle it.
Step One: Restrict Your Dog’s Access to the Household Items in Question
Focus on restricting your dog’s access to the items in your house that you don’t want him to steal. Every time he steals, plays with, chews on, or even destroys a paper towel roll, he’s getting something out of it and becoming really good at doing that bad behavior. This step is all about management, which often goes hand in hand with training.
Step Two: Search for the ‘Why’
The second thing you need to think about here is why your dog is stealing this stuff in the first place. Why is he chewing these items? What is he getting out of them? Does he have a need to chew that you may not be fulfilling? Does he have a need to play that you might not be satisfying? Think about why your dog is stealing these items and how you can help fulfill his needs in other more appropriate ways that work for both of you.
Step Three: Train Your Dog to Stop Stealing and Biting Household Items
While step one was focused on managing the situation in real-time, step three is all about teaching your dog a new, better behavior. In order to train your dog to stop stealing and biting these items, first think about what you want him to do around them and reinforce that behavior in a series of short training sessions. While teaching the “leave it cue” is definitely worthwhile, you’re not going to use a cue in these sessions. Instead capture the behavior you like (e.g. ignoring the paper towel roll), since you want that to become your dog’s default behavior. In this way you are teaching your dog to make the choice you like around the paper towel roll, even if you are not there to say “leave it.”
Follow these steps below to practice training this with your dog in a fun, game setting:
Start your dog in a sit.
Hold the paper towel roll behind your back and then bring it out in front of your dog so he can see it. Mark and reward the moment he notices the paper towel roll and doesn’t try going for it.
You can make this game more challenging by bringing the paper towel roll increasingly closer to your dog or moving it around when you present it.
Remember to take baby steps here, so your dog enjoys the game and is successful.
If your dog starts going for the item, simply don’t mark and reward. Take a step back to make the game a little easier before progressing again (in other words, make that item less tempting by holding the paper towel roll further away or by moving it less).
Keep these sessions nice and short (just a few minutes at a time). Feel free to play multiple times a day!
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