Shorter days seem to mean every man, woman and dog are trudging the streets at the same time, whether it’s for convenience, safety or to avoid the mud! Less daylight usually means more dogs in your usual walking spots, making walks stressful and frustrating if you have a reactive or easily distracted dog. Navigating the streets safely can be a concern for many dog owners.
Don’t despair, because in this challenge we’ve got some street work strategies to help with unwelcome or distracting encounters!
The activities should be practiced at home first, then in quiet outdoor locations before trying them on the streets. The more you practice at home, the stronger the muscle memory will become – for both you and your dogs! If you don’t practice in locations without your dog’s triggers, you won’t succeed.
So let’s set our dogs up for sucess and help them learn what we want them to do before expecting them to be able to do it in an environment they find challenging.
Helping our dogs out when they need it is an important element of Partnership. The lead work strategies this month take the pressure off reactive dogs and help easily distracted dogs remain calm and focused.
Let’s begin the journey from Corner Lurker to Lead Walking Ninja!
You won’t be able to cover all of the exercises from this chapter in one week, so please choose the one that is most relevant to you and focus on that. There will be opportunity to try the others later in your membership.
- Up and Down – for when you need to let a distraction pass you
- 1, 2, 3, treat! – for when you need to pass a distraction
- Let’s Go! (single and multidog) – for when you need to turn around and leave quickly because you are too close to a trigger
- Loose Lead Walking – for if your dog pulls a lot
Curving is something I would recommend everyone to look at – it’s quick and simple.