Answer: The lab owner is the one with a sling on her arm, a black eye, and using crutches.
Thats a bad joke that I used to tell when ever I was doing one of my leash walking seminars. I used to do weekend seminars just on leash walking and I always told that bad joke because of an incident that happened shortly after I opened my dog training business.
You see, one Saturday afternoon I was finishing up a day of teaching classes when a very nice lady walked into my office. She looked like she was in a Rocky movie. She had two huge black eyes, a piece of tape over her nose and her face was red and puffy.
I found out that her face was puffy from crying, she started to cry almost as soon as she walked in the door. She then told the story of her big 90lb. black lab that was the cause of her injuries and her crying.
She went on to explain that she was about to take her dog for walk, something she absolutely dreaded because he was such an awful puller. He would drag her around for about thirty minutes and taking him for a walk was terrible.
She added that the other day she was getting ready to take him for a walk. Just as she was about to exit the house her husband called to her. She stopped just as she was walking out the door. Her lab was outside the house and she was still inside the house.
As she was standing in the house holding her dogs leash as he was outside, her dog saw a cat. Her lab seeing the cat took off after it full speed. She had the loop of the leash around her wrist.
With the speed of a boat pulling a skier out of the water she went face first into the door, breaking her nose and injuring her wrist.
It was then that she started to cry - she said that she loved her dog. He was sweet, never chewed, never had any housetraining issues but she could not control him on the leash. He pulled her everywhere and it was becoming impossible to walk him anywhere.
I assured her that she was in the right place and that we would get her dog walking on leash in no time. A few days later she showed up with her happy, excitable, strong lab and we started our leash training. I explained to her that the best place to start training is to understand why dogs do certain behaviors.
When it comes to pulling there are three reasons why dogs pull. Once you understand what the reasons are you can take steps to fix the problem. Here they are:
Reason #1: Your dog has no clue that they are supposed to walk next to you.
Reason #2: Opposition reflex.
Reason #3: Your dog is constantly being rewarded for pulling.
So lets look at the first reason why dogs pull - Your dog has no clue that he is supposed to walk at your side. When you put your dog on leash your dog does not know that he is supposed to walk politely at your side. Your dog sees a big world in front of him and starts to pull.
The first step is to teach your dog to walk at your side. I start by using a food lure and having the dog follow the food lure.
IMPORTANT POINT: The is a exercise that you practice in a non-distracting area. The purpose of this exercise is to teach your dog where you want him to be. Taking your dog for a walk with a food lure wont work for long. There are too many distractions.
You want to spend about 10 minutes a day just having your dog follow the food lure at your side. This is laying the foundation for the future. Once your dog starts to understand that you want your dog to walk on your side you can add a slight correction that will teach your dog to stay at your side.
In my next post Ill explain opposition reflex and why that makes walking your dog difficult.
Good luck and I look forward to your comments.
Best,
Eric
P.S. You can teach your dog to walk on your left or right side. If you plan to do competitive obedience your dog has to be on your left side.
P.P.S. If you dont need to teach your dog to walk on leash but are interested in more about dog training visit: Amazing Dog Training Man Home Study
