18/09/2023
Are you struggling with immense pullers / dogs that wee up every wall they find? This post might help you…
When I first saw Jasper his owners were struggling with walking down the street with him, he was like a freight train that wouldn’t stop until he got where he wanted to go.
As soon as I took him out to see what it was like I immediately knew what the problem was- he was in a rush to investigate every smell on the floor, on the walls, on the grass, on the lamp posts everything, like the world was depending on him to sniff. He was also a big big wall marker, he would pull to sniff and mark people’s driveway walls, literally every single wall.
So we got to work, before we even left the house we worked on engagement with and without his outside gear on, sat at the foot of the door with it open for a while so Jasper could observe calmly without rushing out. Slowing the pace down.
Later once we moved to the outside we worked more on engagement, keeping the walks on the streets short, literally just walking down the immediate street outside the house, practicing eye contact and focus on me to slow him down, letting him sniff every once in a while without pulling. Most importantly we didn’t let Jasper rehash the pulling and marking on walls, if he did seem like he was going to repeat those behaviours we’d go into management mode to prevent him from carrying out the behaviour, this would mean getting his attention and turning around from the wall for example and getting his attention on me.
Eventually we conditioned him to look at the whoever was walking him after he finished his sniff for a treat, instead of marking, as if to say I’m finished now can we move on? We let him sniff, slowed down the pace of walks, stopped every so often, waited for him to offer attention, sometimes requested attention.
The marking decreased whereas the focus and calmness increased, all with a bit of patience, calmness and respect. Now the walks are much easier!
