Does anyone have any tips for training your dog to walk withouth needing a lead/leash?
Friday, May 7th, 2010 at
5:06 pm
We’ve had a lot of dogs in my family. We’re about to get a new one. We’ve never been able to train our dog to walk without a lead, mainly because we’ve never trusted the dog to stay with us, so we haven’t had the courage to walk wihtout one. How do people generally train dogs to walk obediently?
Tagged with: anyone • lead/leash • needing • Tips • Training • walk • withouth
Filed under: Dog Leash Training
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I’ve trained for 25 years. Obedience, show ring, service dogs, law enforcement and military.
Why take the chance of walking a dog without a lead?
What advantage is gained except it looks really cool.
You cannot plan or train for the unexpected. You can have an animal perfectly trained and all it takes is one sudden unexpected event to spook the dog for even an instant and invite disaster.
I have a 10 year old golden that has been trained since he was 12 weeks old. He will obey voice and hand commands.
He helps to train service dogs. He will walk for MILES at my side without hesitation. I use a lead with him on the street.
He’s my friend and partner and I wouldn’t risk his safety (as well as violating the law) walking him off the lead.
Granted, I use a lead more appropriate to a toy breed, but it gives stability and comfort to both of us. Like using seatbelts in a car. Not always needed but there when they are.
What if another dog would run up aggressively, friendly or not.
Your dog backs up 2 steps, goes into the street and is struck by a car.
Not worth the risk. Train them well and save the offlead adventure to the dog park or rural areas.
A well trained dog is a credit to the animal and to it’s owner.
My dogs know exactly what is expected of them. They are happy, healthy and live long fulfilled lives.
Train well, always remain consistent, never punish when training, and have patience. Secrets to Dog Training, by Dog Trainer Expert, Daniel Stevens. It’s a terrific book on how to train dog.
http://kingdom-of-dog.blogspot.com/
Good luck!
I wouldn’t know and wouldn’t want to as there is a leash law that is nation wide so I would just not bother to try it and keep abiding by the law.
The Koehler method focuses on off-lead training.
Here are some links:
http://www.amazon.com/Koehler-Method-Dog-Training/dp/0876055773
http://www.koehlerdogtraining.com/
A couple months back I got a call from an elderly woman at the animal shelter I worked at asking me if the shelter would “take care of” the remains of her beloved Golden Retriever. We are in a poor area of the state so we get these calls quite often as the vet offices charge and arm and a leg to dispose of the bodies and the ground was frozen solid. Of course, I said yes. Sadly, we have more than enough room for another body…
She came in and I helped another shelter worker lug the corpse to the back. I assured the woman that we would give her dog the utmost respect and that he would be buried respectfully on property that we own. She didn’t need to know that we have a mass grave full of half decomposing, diseased bodies in the form of a trench 100 feet long and 8 feet deep covered by old doors and wood sheets.
When her dog was out of sight she felt the need to talk. I have a bachelor’s in psychology and people seem to just open up to me. She told me that Buddy had been the best dog you could ask for. He was so well trained and a great companion. He was also an “off lead dog.” Buddy was 14 years old but in good health and didn’t have so much as a touch of arthritis. They were expecting at least a few more years out of their best friend.
The couple were on their routine morning walk that they’ve been doing since Buddy was only 8 weeks old when they first got him. Since he was 1 he was an off lead dog and never strayed. They said there was never an issue, he’d never leave their side even if another dog passed by or a child ran up.
Yesterday had been a different story, however. Buddy saw a leaf or maybe caught a sent that was just a tad more interesting in the couple and darted off- right in front of a pick-up truck. Buddy never did anything like that before but on that day he did. Off lead dogs are trustworthy- until they aren’t.
Because they didn’t want to simply click a leash on their dog which, if properly trained the dog wouldn’t even pull on it, they had to scrape their dog off the pavement and wrap him in a blood-soaked blanket which is how he was given to us.
Is it worth it?
Best tip i ever got: Don’t.
It takes months, maybe even years, of work to get a dog so obedient to the point where you trust them to not bolt. And even then, something could scare the dog, instincts could be triggered…. then you’ve likely got a dead dog on your hands because it ran that two feet into the street and the path of an oncoming car.
The ONLY time a dog should be worked off lead is in a secure environment with fencing. There is nothing “cool” about having your dog hit by a car because you were ignorant enough to try to train the dog to not need a leash.
Leash laws are there for a REASON.