Your Expectations/rules For Pooch On A Walk.

[Teebs]

I dont care what mine do, as long as they dont pull. Kaos tends to walk in front, and Atlas behind me.

[dee lee]

I HATE pulling, so I expect her to be next to me. She also has an overriding desire to eat crap on the ground so I dont let sniff etc. Most of the time that my dog is on lead we are just out and about or on our way to the park, so its not for exercise- she gets plenty of opportunity to sniff, run etc when being exercised offlead.

These days though, we spend a lot of time walking/running/fetching offlead for exercise and subsequently her loose lead walking has suffered. The hated pulling has returned.

So I have dusted off the martingale and things are looking better.

[corvus]

It all depends on what you want the end result to be. As you say, you aren't after proficiency...when you are trialling you really do and you need to be very precise. Until you have trialled in competition without any of the aids we use in training you are not in a position to understand the difference.

What makes you think my idea of a fluent behaviour doesn't include precision? When I said 'proficiency' I meant very good at it in certain circumstances. IMO 'fluency' means proficiency in all situations.

I am sure that my tower of ignorance will come crashing down if I ever get around to trialling, but in the meantime, I train with very precise criteria. The smaller the details in criteria, the more precise the behaviour, and the more reliable. It also looks prettier! The more I train the tighter my criteria get, regardless of the purpose of the behaviour. If something is worth doing it is worth doing well. I'm not sure who considers detailed criteria the cornerstone of good training, but it's very high on my list.

Not that any of that matters to the current topic. I'm gonna go ask my friends that trial, though.

[poodlefan]

The 'rules" are:

* don't trip me up

* don't pull on the lead

* stop at roads or anywhere else when I say "whoa" and proceed when I say "OK"

I don't heel my dogs on walks because I don't ever walk only one dog.

Corvus if you practice tight "wrap style" heeling you might want to think how much of it you do - its been linked to skeletal and muscular problems in dogs. You might at least like to think about teaching the equivalent behaviour for your other side.

Edited September 5, 2011 by poodlefan

[BC Crazy]

I have always thought to myself that formal type heel work looks like such an unnatural body posture for the dog. He really isn't even looking where he is going. I understand that it is the rules in obedience or formal stuff but

I wouldn't want mine walking like that for any length of time for the same reasons as PF said. Thats just me though . I like a dog to feel comfortable as we go for a walk for pleasure & exercise.

[Elise+Hudson]

Hudson has only just started walking.. He was already fairly good at the 'show gaiting' pose, so now I just give him the command 'lets go' which means walk beside me with a loose lead and look ahead (quite similar to his show gait).

He doesn't stop to sniff unless I stop, and he also is not allowed to pull or cross over (otherwise he trips me up!)

He also has to stand + 'wait' before crossing roads, then I give him the ok by 'lets go' again.

I am so lucky he seems to be picking this up quickly. But with cars, posties, bikes, prams and kids he can be a little distracted sometimes!

[DeltaCharlie]

Well we have 9 dogs and it isn't uncommon for us to walk most them at the same time (2 people). Our only real requirement is that you don't bite each other (the beauty of running a large pack) Trying to insist on much else is hard when you have multiple leads in one hand as you can't exactly give a correction to a single dog. I guess if you stop to sniff we aren't stopping everyone just for you so expect to be dragged...

I will admit though, we are pretty lazy when it comes to teaching the dogs to walk properly and just rely on other aids to help out. They are very rarely walked anyway so it hasn't been something that we have cared to teach. Charlie, Dash, Whip, Link and Rush wear gentle leaders; Delta wears a no-pull harness; Sweep, Brooks and Jaz wear harnesses (they can still pull but at least they wont damage their throats )

When walking back up the driveway the expectation is that everyone pulls as hard as they can because we are tired and struggle to walk back up the hill on our own

[bedazzledx2]

Luv it!!!!! :rofl: :rofl:

Well we have 9 dogs and it isn't uncommon for us to walk most them at the same time (2 people). Our only real requirement is that you don't bite each other (the beauty of running a large pack) Trying to insist on much else is hard when you have multiple leads in one hand as you can't exactly give a correction to a single dog. I guess if you stop to sniff we aren't stopping everyone just for you so expect to be dragged...

I will admit though, we are pretty lazy when it comes to teaching the dogs to walk properly and just rely on other aids to help out. They are very rarely walked anyway so it hasn't been something that we have cared to teach. Charlie, Dash, Whip, Link and Rush wear gentle leaders; Delta wears a no-pull harness; Sweep, Brooks and Jaz wear harnesses (they can still pull but at least they wont damage their throats )

When walking back up the driveway the expectation is that everyone pulls as hard as they can because we are tired and struggle to walk back up the hill on our own

[ness]

x2 bedazzled

[minxy]

No major rules really. We did a training course that was all about LLW once. We only did it because we could only do Wednesday night classes and it was the only one on a Wed night that we hadn't done yet. Figured it would be really useful anyway, but once we started we realised that walking had started to become a little bit unenjoyable for us. There was way too much time spent on doing corrections and trying to get Kyojin to walk in the right position and do certain things. Now that we've relaxed a bit, still gets corrections if he forges ahead too much etc (the fact that we now walk him on a martingale instead of a flat collar is a million times better) we find walking's really great. He's also settled down now that he's older. Walking is quite so exciting anymore. Now our only requirements is that he walks on the left hand side, somewhat in line with us and not charging ahead.