[Eylin Gilbart]

#7558

Loose Leash Training (with distractions) is over a period of days/weeks, usually in short intervals.  How do you handle your dog when you are doing daily walks in the meantime? Angel walks well much of the time, but she does like to sniff edges or eat anything on the ground in our path, for example. Should we be in ‘training’ mode the whole 1 hour walk or should there be a balance  of some sort?

[Darcie Jennings]

#7581

Hi Eylin,

That’s a great question! You definitely need to have some balance in there – time for her to sniff and enjoy herself and be “off” and time for her to learn not to drag your arm off. But always be ready to jump back into training mode if, say, she tries to eat something on the ground you don’t want her to (“Leave-it!” practice) or tries to drag you full speed to something she wants to sniff (reinforce that you will only move forward if the leash stays loose and, so long as it does, walk her over to what she was interested in checking out).

Darcie

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