Taking puppies for walks is a great way to let them explore their surroundings and burn off energy. However, these walks can easily become stressful when puppies haven’t learned how to walk properly on a leash. When your puppy is constantly pulling on the leash, you might be tempted to skip walks, but you don’t need to do that.
The Right Way
You can get your puppy to learn how to walk on a leash without pulling or tugging, as long as you’re patient and doing this kind of training the right way. Keep the following leash training video tips in mind, so you can look forward to going for walks with your puppy.
Start with Small Steps
This method of training puppies to walk on a leash involves breaking it down into many smaller steps. Each of these steps is easier for puppies with short attention spans to learn in a small amount of time. Rather than focusing on putting your puppy on a leash, heading outside and starting to walk, you should be focusing on going through one small step at a time.
As the video shows, you can start by letting your puppy get used to the leash. Your puppy won’t automatically learn how to behave with it, but he’ll at least be able to get over the initial excitement of exploring a new object. When your puppy is used to the leash, you can then move on to the next step and gradually go through all of the steps. Keep in mind that teaching your puppy to walk on a leash can take time, so make sure that you’re patient throughout training
Aim for a Loose Leash
What happens when you tug on the leash to stop your puppy from pulling so much? Your puppy considers this a signal that it’s alright to keep pulling. Remember that puppies pull on leashes when they’re excited about checking out their surroundings. Being able to pull and try to drag you where they want to go is rewarding for them. You can put a stop to this by aiming to turn a looser leash into a rewarding experience for your puppy.
This training approach involves making sure that you’re not accidentally rewarding your puppy for pulling. As you’ll see in the video, your focus should be on rewarding your puppy for walking near you on a loose, relaxed leash instead. Using rewards to do this motivates your puppy to learn that he won’t get what he wants by tugging on the leash. With training, he’ll learn that he gets what he wants when he walks on the leash rather than pulling.
Build Positive Associations
How can you make sure that you’ll successfully train your puppy to walk on a leash without pulling? The key to this is building positive associations between being on a leash and walking calmly with no tugging or pulling. Keeping training positive overall helps lower the risk of having your puppy become too frustrated to learn.
As this video demonstrates, you don’t even need the leash to start training. In fact, you should work on motivating your puppy with food and a pleasant, high-pitched voice. Once your puppy learns to go where you want him to go while being led around with food as a reward, you can add the leash to these training intervals. Remember to keep your training short, or your puppy can end up getting bored or distracted.
Best way to get puppies to Stop Pulling
How can you be sure that your puppy will stop yanking on the leash? Visit The Online Dog Trainer to find out the most effective ways to stop leash pulling, so you can enjoy peaceful walks with your puppy in no time.
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