Lucy on the Leash

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| Print | By | November 28, 2007 3:51 PM

Meet my client Lucy, the year-old Treeing Walker Coonhound:

She was a member of the Iditarod Club prior to beginning training with me, as in, harness her and hold on tight, because you’re going for a ride around the neighborhood. She had places to go, and the human at the other end of the leash wasn’t about to hold her back.

Based on the eye rolling and grimacing her people did while telling me about her leash skills, I was prepared for a major rehab the first time we stepped outside. I level-set them about the “always training” nature of dog walking (there’s no such thing as “training walks” and “regular walks”), and made sure to mention that we could have a challenging journey ahead of us.

Wrong again. (Have you noticed how often Madam Biscuit is wrong? Humbling, really.)

Lucy picked up on the method almost immediately. She quickly discovered a few important facts:

1. If I stay close to my people, I get greasy delicious hot dogs every so often.
2. If I pull, the walk stops, and sometimes, if I don’t stop pulling, I even lose ground and have to back up.
3. If I walk kinda close to my person instead of at the end of the leash, my neck doesn’t hurt!

She was putty in our hands. Seems she only needed some guidance to learn to walk like a pro. Check her out at her final session, being extra-good and checking in with her person:

Even with distractions (her best buddy Ian), she managed to stay close to her person:

I love this shot because even though she looks a little nervous (she was totally freaked out by my camera), she demonstrating the holy trinity of good leash walking: 1. she’s close to her person 2. she’s checking in with her person (gazing up at her) and 3. there’s no tension in the leash.

Leash walking is one of the toughest training skills to master because it requires vigilance. You’re competing with the millions of distractions in the environment (hello, squirrels), as well as your dog’s natural inclination to see what’s around the next corner. Have you and your dog mastered polite leash walking? Is your dog a sled dog or a good dog?

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