While it’s tempting to dress Lilly up and post photos for Halloween, I won’t put her through the drama. Instead, I’ll share just one interesting experiment I did this weekend with Lilly’s training.
I’m kind of a tough nut when it comes to dogs being off-leash in public. Mostly it’s because I see far too people think they have voice control over their dogs but really don’t.
So, I’ve never been really anxious to turn Lilly into the perfect off-leash dog in normal public settings. Do I want her to be rock solid in the agility ring? Absolutely, but I’m in no rush to have her hike off-leash or walk around off-leash in general.
HOWEVER, since there was no traffic and no loose dogs on our walk Thursday, I experimented by simply draping her leash over my shoulder and not really hanging on to it. We walked almost the entire way home side by side.
Not one to be over-confident, I did hold onto the leash when we passed some dogs barking at us behind their fence.
But, I have to admit … it was really sweet to see her stick right next to me. Maybe she couldn’t tell I wasn’t holding onto the leash, but it was fun to try.
How about you? Any strategies for training and proofing your dog as an off-leash star?
I’ve always taken my dogs off leash when I’m walking in the woods or through the fields. I practice recalls with them while they’re off leash and they’re not too distracted so that when something does come up, their first instinct is “cookie” :’)
My border collie is reliable off leash, partly because he is a humongous mamma’s boy and his main interest in life is being with me. Once we were in the yard and a rabbit darted out of the bushes. Jax took a few steps and when I called out “no, stay here”, he stopped on a dime.
My girls are totally different stories. Both undoubtedly have hunting dog genes in their family trees and are all about scents and small furry friends. I often times think a huge,juicy steak wouldn’t bring them back to me if a squirrel crossed our path. (Or more likely, they’d grab the steak from my hands and continue to chase whatever they were after, eating the steak on the way)
Patricia McConnell,PhD touches on this in an article in the most recent issue of The Bark magazine, Page 31, if you’re interested.
My dogs are all off-leash dogs, once they’ve become well enough trained. When I say that they’re ‘off-leash’, I mean that they can be off-leash when we are well away from roads and other hazards. We live in an area where there are very few other trail users so we only occasionally encounter other humans, horseback riders, or mtn bike riders on our walks, but we do encounter lots of animals.
To prepare them to be off-leash dogs, we start working on recalls from the day that they join our family. We do restrained recalls on a regular basis. In addition, I do 3 recalls at the start of each off-leash walk with huge jackpot rewards (or tugging). I then do another 5 or so recalls at various times during the walk when there aren’t tough distractions. If I stick with this regime (especially the jackpot for every recall), my dogs are awesome at recalls, close to 100% successful.
I also purposely work on recalls in areas where I am aware that there are coyotes, elk or other animals in the vicinity (but not until my dogs are pretty reliable off-leash or I use long-lines).
I socialize my dogs to horses by getting my friends who are horseback riders to help me (they have dog-friendly horses). I start with classical conditioning to overcome any fear of horses. Then we work on basic commands while the horse is trotting around. Training my dogs to be good around horses has been a lot easier than I would have expected.
Finally, we work on sit-stays next to the trail to let non-dog-lovers walk past us without having to interact with my dogs.
It’s a lot of work to do all this training (but no more than you already do with Lilly) — but it’s well worth it to be able to watch my dogs frolic as I walk through the woods.