Clicker training gets results with your dog and puppy training and that includes leash training. You can use a clicker with treats and achieve excellent results with your training sessions. Food is great for luring your dog into good dog behavior while in your training times, but once the dog gets the idea, you may have a hard time getting rid of the treats. Be unpredictable in your rewards and make a game of it.
Always impress upon the dog that the fun stuff comes when the leash is slack. Learn how to use your clicker and facial expressions so that your dog wants to be near you. These are training tools that you never leave at home. Practice different pitches and sounds in your voice too, to see what attracts your dog’s interest.
Many trainers have concerns about using treats, but they must remember the significance of raising the criteria. This means asking the dog to do more before giving it a reward. Many people like to use the treats in their dog clicker training. Your dog may learn to walk beautifully by your side as long as you keep clicking and treating, but what happens when your pocket is empty? Try to make it do a bit more during each walk – go a bit farther between treats, or ignore bigger distractions.
Despite its age, your adult dog will need the same considerations as a puppy during leash training. When the leash goes taut, help the dog understand why you stopped by using your voice to get its attention. If it is too busy barking or pulling forward to something it finds particularly enticing, use treats or a toy to distract it from its mission.
Have these special rewards ready before hitting the known problem area and work to keep your dog’s attention. This will help your dog learn to ignore the bothersome barking dog or that tempting squirrel nest. Understandably, we all would like instant results, but dog training seldom works that way. It may take weeks or even months, to persuade the dog that pulling is no longer effective. Owners can become discouraged, concluding that they are doing something wrong or their dog is hopeless.
Even if the results are slow in coming, keep in mind that even 2 steps without pulling is progress and you must praise, praise and praise some more! Soon it will be 3 steps, then 4 steps and so on. The change won’t happy overnight, in a week, or even a month. It is going to take time. Fairness and consistency and practicing every day, perhaps for months, will achieve years of benefit. If you would like to try dog clicker training you can read my review on Morten and Cecilie’s Clickertraining.
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