Hiya

I've decided to make a diary about my journey through loose lead training. I'll try and update it daily so that people can see my journery through it and also help and guide others who are loose lead training.

Here's some history about Ollie:

He's a Chocolate Roan English Cocker Spaniel castrated male, nearly 3 years old. He's pulled all his life, knows the heel command but haven't been able to implent it to everyday life, just doing it in terms of obedience work. I'm doing loose lead training on a normal flat collar, and using the 300 peck technique (https://sites.google.com/site/lucysd...00-peck-pigeon) and also "stopping when dog pulls and lure dog back to heel position" technique.

Day 1: (yesterday)
First session loose lead training. Put Ollie on a flat collar and a short-normal length lead. Lured Ollie into heel position, said heel and walked forward. I gave a treat every step, rewarding with good boy and saying heel after each treat, so he associated the heel command with being in the heel position and in walking pace. (Ollie knows the heel position but I was just reinforcing it before progressing). After about 30 seconds of doing this, I said his release command (which is "OK") to let him know that he can be released from the heel position and that he can sniff and do what he likes AS LONG AS HE DOESN'T PULL. If he pulled, I stopped immediately, waited until he looked at me, and lured him back to heel position (even when he was in release mode). The session ended well, with getting up to 4 steps between treats.

Day 2: (today)
Ollie was great today, as soon as I put his special collar and lead on, he was in the mode, and didn't pull me out the back door like he usually does. All it took was for me to say "ah" and he stopped and came back to heel position which was fantastic. Even though he really wanted to get to the bottom of the garden to bark at some pigeons, he stayed at heel and if I said "Ollie" or "ah", he came back to heel. Sometimes he reached the end of the lead and i just stopped and he quickly came back to heel. I did the full length of the garden and back (about 120m) in heel, treating every 8 steps. Going great so far. I'm going to do heelwork in the garden only for the moment until I'm treating every 20 steps and then I'll introduce it to outside.

I hope this diary helps others.

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I OWN A CHOCOLATE ROAN COCKER SPANIEL
RIP David xx Run free at the bridge. Love you always xx 19th February 2011
RIP Jack and Mickey xx Run free at the bridge. Love you forever xx 20th June 2011

Don't get disheartened if suddenly he has a day where he doesn't seem to listen, remember "extinction bursts".

Sounds like you and Ollie are going well, I'll be reading with interest.
I've got the same problem with Molly[springer]. Shes getting away with it at the minute as we both needed a break from the frustration! She will not take treats outside the house and garden- so this is where I get stuck
Keep us updated and good luck

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Have you found other motivations that may work better? Or tried calming exercises, before training to help the dog focus better?

I linked recently to Doggy Dogma's Blog page (commenting on prong collars) that explained the effects of the greater stimulation on the public walk, as opposed to training situation in house or garden causing "stubborn" dogs - Doggy Dogma: Check, Prong & Eletric Collars - time for a re-think (original post in this thread self correction collar )

Hi Rob, she'll do everything SP is doing in the house, garden and even in a field-perfect. Getting to a walk is a different thing.
Her biggest motivation is the tennis ball- but she still pulls if I let her carry it. I've just started a bit of target training indoors with the clicker. I was hoping letting her 'touch' the ball on walks would give her something else to think about? This isn't working though , she touches everything else- but grabs the ball!! Do you have any other ideas on how to use the ball? I'll have a look at that link, thanks

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I've been using toy motivation to premack. Doggie knows good heeling means he'll get to play soon.

The thing is, you can't really train with any success if your dog is over-stimulated so finding way to help calm matters. Think tripod said tug could be calming (when played right) and I have indeed been rewarding self-calming behaviour with the game, that anticipation of caused the exciteability. So basically the dog is learning better self control.

Ideally you can figure out ways to cope with the root of the issue, and solve the over-stimulation, it'd help especially Rescue dogs who tend to be especially prone to that problem.

I was a bit surprised by a conversation I had at end of dog walk last night, with a lady with a cocker, she talked about all she did with a Doberman to avoid issues and train, but said with the Cocker she didn't bother. Yet, I'm seeing all these ppl revving up their spaniels, that dash about frantic, and are getting into spats with other dogs, and noone doing anything to calm them. There's no way they would get away with it, with a large dog.

I'm glad people like this diary. I just hope it helps others.

Day 3:
Did some more loose lead training in the garden today. I started doing heelwork to 8 steps before treating, and quickly went up to 12, 16, and then 20 steps. He was fantastic, doing heelwork perfectly for about 2 minutes constantly, with me treating and praising every 20 steps, and also doing twists, turns, about turns and he followed and stuck by my side the whole time. I'm amazed at how well he's taken to it, he's doing far better than I ever thought he would. Tomorrow, I'll be taking him out to do some heelwork in the park and on the streets, so we'll see how well he does it out in the real world.

__________________
I OWN A CHOCOLATE ROAN COCKER SPANIEL
RIP David xx Run free at the bridge. Love you always xx 19th February 2011
RIP Jack and Mickey xx Run free at the bridge. Love you forever xx 20th June 2011

Well done you and Oliie. Good luck for tomorrow in the big wide world

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Your past few threads have inspired me to buck my ideas up and do more LLW training with Jack.. Hes great on the way back but terrible on the way there and id sort of resigned myself to that fact.
Not anymore im determined he will walk nice as i know he can... Thanks

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you're welcome. it's great to know I've inspired you.

__________________
I OWN A CHOCOLATE ROAN COCKER SPANIEL
RIP David xx Run free at the bridge. Love you always xx 19th February 2011
RIP Jack and Mickey xx Run free at the bridge. Love you forever xx 20th June 2011