JB1824 Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 Hi, We have a 10 week old Lab puppy, and are having a bit of trouble with teaching him to heel/walk with a leash. He will walk with it fine for a couple of minutes and at night when he has less energy. But usually, after a while, he will decide that he wants to play and grab the leash to play tug of war. I had treats in my hand and tried to use the opportunity to teach 'Give' but he didn't care about the food at all! What should I do to stop him from playing with his leash? Should I bring some tastier treats with me next time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tara8430 Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 What are you using as treats JB? I got those little puppy rewards like a little biscuit with live there popular. Going to do a bit of lead work with abbey today, she didn't like her collar much but is moving past that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvsdogs Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 I taught my border collie to heel without the lead at first by luring with treats. As to chewing on the lead my nearly 5 m/o Japanese Spitz puppy does the same thing, still a work in progress. Maybe try using a favourite toy or tug rope to take his attention off the lead if he won't take the treats? Have you tried Chunkers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancinbcs Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 Hi, We have a 10 week old Lab puppy, and are having a bit of trouble with teaching him to heel/walk with a leash. He will walk with it fine for a couple of minutes and at night when he has less energy. But usually, after a while, he will decide that he wants to play and grab the leash to play tug of war. I had treats in my hand and tried to use the opportunity to teach 'Give' but he didn't care about the food at all! What should I do to stop him from playing with his leash? Should I bring some tastier treats with me next time? At 10 weeks he should only be training for about 2-3 min at a time so quit while you are ahead and don't keep going until he starts to play with the lead. Lots of little training sessions are better than one large one a day. Also try to train him to heel without the lead. Then repeat the exercise, exactly the same but with the lead attached. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persephone Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 As dancinbc's said a couple of minutes is good ..stop while he's being good, and NOT chewing I also tend to buy a cheap chain leash and use that for the first days ... they dislike chewing on the hard chain, so a habit never develops! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Fox Posted November 28, 2011 Share Posted November 28, 2011 I'd take a different approach. A 10 week old puppy doesn't 'need' to walk on a leash yet (though it's handy for getting them from A-B). Instead of luring and distracting, put a harness on him to keep the leash back and out of the way (or train without a leash if you can) and work on teaching him focus and engagement with YOU. There are lots of ways to do this but a clicker is probably the easiest. Once pup understands this everything else is much easier. You can then work on clipping the leash on. click/treat, remove the leash, build a positive association. Then when the pup is older you can try some leash pressure work with a collar - you pull gently on the leash, pup yields to the pressure, you C&T. As others have said - short sessions for training, 1-2 mins is enough. Formal heeling is very different to loose leash walking and can be taught without the aid of a leash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tara8430 Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 How did you go with the lead training JB? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB1824 Posted December 10, 2011 Author Share Posted December 10, 2011 I haven't been here for ages! But, we got kind of lazy with lead training and didn't really do much lol. He doesn't mind the lead being put on though, and shortening the training sessions have been really good. He seems to happily walk around with me, BUT he likes to carry the lead in his mouth as well! It looks pretty cute though. He still occasionally starts playing tug of war, but he's getting better with 'Give' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mason_Gibbs Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Gibbs used to do that, he has eventually stopped now, I clicked and treated when he was walking nicely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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