14/11/2025
Happy Friday!
Howās everyone been doing?
This is your little reminder that dog training isnāt linear.
This video looks like Riley is pretty much foot perfect with his loose lead walking. Offering some incredible focus, auto sits and engagement.
The realityā¦ come on, heās a spaniel- can I use that excuse as a dog trainer š¤£š¤.
Iāve just started taking Riley on a lunch time walk to break my day up a bit, and of course spend time with my little moo during the day when heās not with us.
When he and I were younger (pre car, as this was going back a good 8 years) and I still lived at home, I would often take Riley on a loop down towards the canal and back.
This involved going over a foot bridge with steps either side.
Best believe me and Riley would race up and down that footbridge, with little to no effort and no massive pulling on the lead as he was still a puppy, and I was not a dog trainer.
To this day, this walk hasnāt been a training walk as itās often been just to serve a ātoiletā purpose as he wonāt p**p in the garden, and Iām often picking him up and taking him straight to ours as apposed to walking him from the front door.
Years of practicing pulling, and years of habit, and engrained learnt behaviour.
He reminded me last week that dogs never forget that early learning as he thought the race was still on 9 years later, and I very nearly slipped both up and down the steps with a crazy spaniel dragging me up and down the steps (good job I wasnāt wearing uniform and no one was around to see š¤£š¤£š¤¦āāļø).
Needless to say, I thought I best get my act together and revisit some foundations in an environment that I now would like to enjoy a connected walk out with Riley, that historically was just a functional walk.
So my training mission this week has been loose lead walking and connection on our poo green walk, both up and down the steps and around the block.
This walk started with Riley sniffing and weeing about 10 times on the same spot of grass, then managing to walk about 3 meters to the next sniff spotā¦ itās easy at this point to loose the will, and just give up on training. However, I waited for him to have his sniffs, rewarded any check in he offered.
This was the result after an about 6 mins.
I didnāt put any pressure on him, just reminded him that I do exist on this walk by praising effort and capturing good moments.
I find it so awesome how a walk that has been a pully, disconnected, sniffy toileting experience can then, do a 360 and turn into this.
Itās so helpful as we do encounter dogs so to be able to know I can achieve focus within this walk means I can cross roads, and support Riley with this, and also get some compliments along the way.
Was it a perfect walk from start to finish? No. Did we get some success though? Absolutely yes.
My walks with Ri are never going to be like this video shows 100% of the time. Sniffs happen, weeās are needed and to be honest, it doesnāt really bother me that he doesnāt walk angelically on the lead.
However, I do like to make sure I can still tap into these areas that I donāt prioritise, just to remind us both of those foundations, and ensure I have a connection with my dog should I need to support him passing another dog, or if god forbid I drop his lead or the metal clip fails, I know I can recall him and keep him safe.
Hope this very real post helps someone not to feel too demoralised by their dog training journey, fluctuating success, or disconnection with their dog in some or all environments.
I promise, patients is key. Finding what motivated your dog, being consistent. Above all else, make peace with the fact dogs are dogs, they read the world through their noses and can sometimes have off days/ find this tricky.
Take a few paces back, prioritise building relationship. Prioritise fun. The rest will follow nicely x
P.s, keeping the sound in as I found it funny that I called mum and dad, mummy and daddy as thatās what Riley knows them as and I was talking to him (as you do, when naturally you spend quite a lot of time doing when your a sane human, and he definitely understands š¤)ā¦ and also that I have to reassure and remind myself that I am infact a good dog trainer when Iāve just experienced a near disaster that could have involved a few bruises while walking my own dog š¤£š¤¦āāļø). Your welcome
