Ideas for Getting Started With Loose Leash Walking Training
Loose leash walking (LLW) can be a really tough behavior to teach your dog. It can honestly even take years of daily work to get your dog to choose to engage with you on a leash because the world around them is SO fascinating. That’s why we put together this little guide of all of our favorite ideas for ways to train our dogs to walk on a loose leash.
Why Is Loose Leash Walking Such a Hard Behavior To Train?
Once dogs get past a certain puppy age, they tend to walk faster than humans. Beyond that, the world out there is filled with lots of amazing things (smells, social interactions, things to chase, etc.). Heck, for most dogs, forward movement itself is reinforcing! Dogs are skillful learners, so if they pull right before they get to air scent or pull as they take a step forward, guess what gets reinforced? Pulling! It has a way of building a big reinforcement history really quickly as the behavior that works to access all the awesome things they enjoy outside.
Recently we worked with Lance (featured in the video above), a 10-month old and 125-pound Great Pyreneese. Lance pulls to say hi to people (because he adores them) and to sniff things on his walks. When a dog that size pulls, simply trying to “not move” isn’t going to work (though it doesn’t work super well for a lot of dogs -- even those under 125 pounds - because the human body is bendy, so often the pulling still gets dogs a few inches as their human’s shoulder moves in its socket).
We worked with Lance on choosing to walk with his human around his yard. His reinforcement was a treat in the grass, which means he got to sniff too! And what got him access to the reinforcer? Choosing to walk by his human. Since people are FUN to him, we taught him that people are a cue to automatically look at his human. This was all done out of the context of a leashed walk because we needed to get the behavior in order to reinforce it!
Our List for Getting Started With Loose Leash Walking Training
We put together a little checklist of things you can work on with your dog to train loose leash walking and we’ve broken down many of these things below in our guide if you keep scrolling! BTW, we’ll keep adding to this page as time goes on.
Teach your dog the walking behavior out of context and slowly progress (aka start indoors)
Focus on reinforcing your dog for correct behavior before they make mistakes (this means proactive and high rate of reinforcement at first)
Train a “redirection cue” you can use before your dog pulls
Have a plan for switching from food to naturally occurring reinforcers
Prevent your dog from practicing the pulling behavior
Train your dog to pay attention to you around distractions that are separate from walking
Teach functional reinforcers like “go sniff” or “go say hi”
Meet your dog’s needs first! (Not on a six foot leash, ideally)
What It Means To Meet Your Dog’s Needs First Before Loose Leash Walking Training
Imagine being cooped up inside all day and then immediately expected to stay on a sidewalk in a slow walk when you finally go out. SO HARD! Did you know that if you meet your dog’s needs first, so many problems will vanish?
Recently we worked with a 10-month old golden retriever named Daisy (featured in the video above in this section). She is a sweet girl, who has started to pull way more as she’s entered adolescence (yay teens). Daisy is lucky and has an awesome family with incredibly realistic expectations for a teenage pup. Here is what they do to meet her needs before they train loose leash walking.
For the most part, they skip non-essential city walks on a six foot leash (it ends in frustration for all parties).
They are lucky to live one and a half blocks from great hiking trails. For now, they are providing some cues for Daisy to tell her she is free to pull and do whatever she wants on the way TO the trails (realistic expectations).
They let her explore, climb, sniff, go in the creek etc. in the woods (where they also capture attention).
Then on the one and a half blocks home, they give their “walk with me” cue and practice the type of walking they want to become a habit. (Fun fact: They don’t have to do anything to get the good walking now! She just offers it now that her needs have been met!)
Slowly (and as errorlessly as possible), they are also building good leash walking behavior on the way TO the trail. They’re teaching Daisy that the behavior that leads to walking into the woods (which is what is naturally motivating her) is walking with a loose leash (rather than pulling).
How Teaching Your Dog to ‘Go Sniff’ Can Help With Loose Leash Walking
If you have a really sniffy dog, being able to cue “go sniff” as a reinforcer can actually make it MORE likely that you can get their attention and walk on a loose leash! Now when they give you attention while you’re walking, part of your reinforcement can be to simply release them back to sniffing (this is called a functional reward).
Recently we taught the adorable little spaniel, Poppy (featured in the video above in this section), the “go sniff” cue. Like a good spaniel, Poppy has a strong nose and loves to use it (and that is GREAT!). Rather than fighting that nose, Poppy’s human can use what she already wants to do outside (sniff) to reinforce behaviors they want to be able to get (some attention). To teach Poppy, we went to an area she loves to sniff and moved away from it slightly (monkey grass is sniffy heaven). She captured a little attention and then would cue “go sniff” and walk towards that monkey grass (where Poppy was likely to sniff anyway). It only took a few repetitions for her to figure out exactly what “go sniff” meant! Note: Sniffing is super important. Teaching “go sniff” shouldn’t be in lieu of giving a dog ample time to freely move and sniff (crucial for their wellbeing).
What the Heck Does It Mean To Prevent the ‘Pulling Behavior During Loose Leash Walking’
If you have been around dog trainers, you’ve likely heard someone say that you need to prevent your dog from practicing the pulling behavior while you teach them loose leash walking. We were chatting with someone about this recently, and they said, “Well, how am I supposed to prevent the pulling? The whole reason I am training the loose leash walking is because I want the pulling to stop! It feels like a chicken-egg problem.”
When training a loose leash walking behavior, we are really trying to build up a big reinforcement history with our dogs for walking near us. In the beginning, that usually means using treats to help us work up to letting the natural reinforcers take over. The world is filled with potential reinforcers - smells (as we just highlighted), grass to roll in, people to say hi to, etc. When we work on loose leash walking, we want to make sure that the behavior that happens before our dogs access those valuable things is a loose leash behavior = not pulling. Because whatever behavior happens right before our dogs get to sniff that plant is the behavior that gets reinforced.
Here are some ideas to prevent the pulling behavior while training loose leash walking:
Be super thoughtful about where you walk. Skip walking routes that are “pull traps.”
Walk your dog with a ten or 15 foot leash* to give them more space to move around without hitting the end of the leash (potentially even longer depending on where you walk).
Train a “redirection procedure” that you can use before they pull. This gives you a way to tell your dog to loop back to you if they are nearing the end of the leash but haven’t pulled yet.
Meet their broader needs outside of the context of a six foot leash walk.
Rent a SniffSpot where you can walk through nature without a leash or find some hiking trails where your dog can safely be off leash or on a long line.
Meet their initial immediate needs (as we highlighted previously) before your walk (e.g. game of tug inside, flirt pole shenanigans, food puzzles, scent games, etc.). This can reduce the frenetic energy that can show up at the beginning of walks.
If you encounter a tough distraction, pull off to the side and give them treats as the distraction passes. (In other words, opt out of some of the leash walking tests life throws at you until your dog is ready!)
Know what your dog tends to pull towards and observe their body language on the walk. You can release them to access it BEFORE they pull you (may mean you have to pick your pace up, so be thoughtful about where you use this) so that the loose leash behavior is what gets them access.
Proactively reinforce the leash behavior you want (aka feed often for loose leash)! Yes, this is training the desired behavior, but if you do this, it also can prevent some of the unwanted behavior.
Most of our ideas above for prevention are centered around putting your dog in situations where pulling isn’t even possible. Beyond that, it’s about prepping ahead to have a trained behavior you can rely on to prevent that pulling and become a super skilled observer on your walks. Then you can skip hard distractions and release your dog early to others (e.g. “go sniff” or “go say hi”). Soon(ish🥴) that loose leash walking habit will form!
Some Tips For Structuring a Loose Leash Walking Training Session
When you’re structuring a loose leash walking training session like the one above with Hana (who was a five month old puppy at the time), there are some key things to consider so you set your dog up for success. Here’s what we recommend thinking about before you start training:
LOCATION: It matters. Train in a spot like a parking lot that’s away from some of the usual tough city distractions but still around some distractions. The right location can be the sweet spot between offering opportunities to grow and keeping your dog successful.
CHOICE: Give it to the dog. We don’t recommend nagging or yanking your dog. If your dogs stops to do something else, just wait. Then when they choose to re-engage, reinforce that!
GO SNIFF: Just as we highlighted above, it can be a powerful reinforcer. Dogs need to sniff, and we are not a proponent of denying them access to do that. But if you are giving your dog enough other opportunities to freely sniff, you can create a setup where you can use a release to go sniff as a way to reinforce your dog for walking with you (rather than pulling to sniff). Please be thoughtful about how you do this.
ENGAGEMENT: If you want it, you should give it to your dog. If you walk your dog and stare at your phone or are making a million lists in your head, it makes it less likely that a dog learning to walk on a leash is going to engage with you. You don’t need to turn into a total ball of energy (but you totally can 😅), but being present matters. Chit chat with your dogs a lot as you walk and frequently change directions.
How Attention Games Can Help With Loose Leash Walking
Attention games make it fun for your dog to choose you. These games are all about choice, and have a lot of freedom and fun built in. They foundational for loose leash walking so that your dog chooses to engage with you vs. the rest of the world while they’re walking on a leash.
Our friend Jaya (who is only 13 years old!!) has been training her pup, Daisy (featured in the video above in this section), who is an adolescent golden retriever, since the day she came home. When Daisy was just a little baby, Jaya played a lot of engagement and attention games to make it fun for Daisy to choose to pay attention to her. From that foundation, Jaya started working with Daisy to teach her how to walk on a leash. Now that Daisy is hitting her “teenage years,” that adolescent brain has created some new challenges on walks -- namely that Daisy wants to use her newfound size to pull towards things she wants to smell!
Rather than immediately practicing the type of leash walking they may use on the busy city street where they live (with narrow sidewalks), Jaya went back to basics. She played the types of games she practiced with Daisy when she first came home. Sometimes teenage dogs need a little fun refresher before working through particularly hard distractions.
How You Can Try What Jaya Did With Your Dog:
Play a simple little engagement game where your dog gets reinforced for choosing to orient towards you.
Move right into a simple walking game! In this game, treats are tossed out so that your dog gets a chance to sniff a little bit and has the opportunity to CHOOSE to move back to walk with you.
Note: In the video above, Jaya wasn't actually saying or doing anything to try to get Daisy’s attention (though she was changing directions a lot to keep the game interesting!), and Daisy was free to move anywhere. But where did Daisy continue to CHOOSE to go? Back to Jaya! With very little effort, Jaya reminded Daisy that it is fun (and pays) to walk with her. Now she can start working through some tougher distractions!
PS: If you’re looking for more attention games so that your dog will voluntarily pay attention to you indoors and outdoors, around all sorts of distractions, check out our course Attention Unlocked, our self-guided video e-course that stars Juliana DeWillems (CPDT-KA, KPA CTP, CBCC-KA, CDBC).
*[Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning TOC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through our links, at no cost to you.]