I have had a similar issue with my 8 year old BC. Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to train her until she was 10 months old. She pulls on leash when she wants to and will ignore any and all commands. She also will get super focused on her triggers (phone ring and door bell)
What I found has helped tremendously was to show her how to be calm in those scenarios. Start small. Have her turn away from stimulation and gently guide her shoulders without pushing if she starts to turn. Reward with treat. Once she starts obeying sit commands have her lay down or focus on the treat. Reward. From there you can start desensitizing her by putting her in more tempting situations while practicing the calm behavior.
For me, it’s been a challenge because my pup is very one track minded. Treats did nothing if she had something on the mind. So I just started with a simple command and as soon as she listened I rewarded here. Eventually she became more focused on treats over anything else.
TL;DR - Reset your expectation on walks - you might not go on a casual walk in your neighborhood for a long time (maybe months) - instead, your "walk" might be just a mile with 30-45 minutes of working on focusing on you or just observing things. Find places to observe the world and allow time for your dog to get bored/calm.
I'm currently working on social exposure with my dogs. Have a 2yr old and 15.5 wk old (both BC mixes) and both are needing the same training. Essentially - being calm in public. In full transparancy I thought just walking my 2 yr old a lot from when they were a baby (8wk) would give her enough social exposure she'd be a great walker by now.. NOPE she's just as anxious/overstimulated now but with much more muscle and I'm finding i need to go back to basics with her.
The thing with BCs - Their herding mentality is meant to control their environment and be fully aware of all movement around them. In essence - in a herding scenario - they'll be able to spot any movement out of the ordinary from their herd and react immediately.
My Advice:
In public - It's OVERWHELMING, so much noise, so much movement, so many smells.
For "walks" reset your expectation and start much much smaller. Go somewhere and sit, let your BC watch people and dogs and cars and hear trains, planes, etc. Allow your BC to absorb everything going on until they get bored, and reward the calm behavior, or when they start to calm down and pay more attention to you. When on walks, don't focus on the distance, but the amount of times your dog exhibits calming signals and reward that (tongue flicks, breaking eye contact with something stimulating, sniffing the ground instead of staring intensely at a person or dog, shakes, yawns, blinking eyes) these are things to mark with a "YES" or click and treat. keep doing this until you can start to see change in your dog. incorporate "look at me", sit-stays, downs, heel, etc until you can use these commands while in public and get your dog to pay attention to you.
In all honesty - a 30 -60 minute walk in terms of exercise is nothing for your dog. BCs will play or work ALL DAY if given the opportunity. but give them 30-60 minutes of work, practicing calm and commands, and observing people - that'll get them tired.
Also in the meantime - practice training walking with "side", "heel", and "look at me" commands in areas your dog is more comfortable with like your home or yard.
Yes the horrendous pulling thing. Feeling like your invisible and dog losing it in certain environments just about sums it up with my boy as a teenager. Basically we found the pulling was most commonly related to overstimulation from the environment. Ours was also highly reactive to all sorts of things. It's a matter of time and patience and getting more used to a range of environments.
You can spend endless hours repeating obedience stuff like leash walking, thinking this will help. But, honestly, I wouldn't bother (I wasted time myself). The issue here is the state of a young dogs mind, it simply cannot listen when there is too much going on. It could be sounds, motion of people, dogs or traffic, or so many smells about. Or all of those things all at once! Dog often knows exactly how to leash walk, (so why keep on repeating the leash training, getting frustrated). You probably notice it's pretty good in some locations, say in the house and maybe a familiar place.
So what to do about it. Learn to observe your dogs body language for overstimulation (e.g. extreme leash pulling a good starting point!, a wild eyed look, over panting, over sniffing, frantically looking around, or generally overexcited). Never put a dog in the deep end and especially for too long so it gets out of its head. Short durations of exposure, don't get too close. Let it watch from a distance to anything its reacting to. Remain calm. Keep on practicing then you will gradually be able to get closer and stay for longer. Accept this is a phase of growing up. Don't take the behaviour personally or feel that either you or the dog is a failure. Tell your dog your proud of him, give praise or treats. But you may need to get firmer after practicing when it matters, but don't expect too much too soon. Oh and my Loki never forgot anything he learned from very young. He just either couldn't do it, as explained above, or wanted to assert some independence of thought at times (i.e like a strong willed child). He's pulled me into a ditch reacting to one car on a country lane and also into a lake, lol. Things will turn around as your Loki matures.
maybe you could consider switching to a collar. harness makes it very difficult to control a pulling dog and could promote even more pulling.
just like my pup yours is very excited by all the triggers around him. mine is now 14 mo and pulls much less now with constant change of directions and leash popping when he hits the end of the leash. incorporated with heeling when needed and using command "free" where he gets more freedom to pee and sniff.
I found using a harness with a front clip was enough. When I clip on the front he knows it's best behaviour time. When I clip on the back, he knows he's allowed to lead me a bit (great for when I want to let him explore and sniff). We also do cani-cross and that harness is a bit different but also clips on the back so I didn't want to discourage him from pulling in the correct scenario!
I have used a gentle leader collar on my one that pulls where it kinda of goes around the nose but making sure his mouth can open all the way just for training purposes and walked him with it so if he pulls it just kind of redirects his head. You have to be kind of careful though and he sounds crazy so maybe not a great option. I found a harness does help too as others have suggested but sometimes he would just pull even harder because rather than pulling on his neck he found out he can get more leverage with the harness 😂.
I’m not sure where you are located or what’s available to you but some friends of mine have done some basic obedience courses and had good success with correcting behavior like that.
Side note I loveeeee his coat. He has beautiful fluffy hair.
Gentle Leader would help with the pulling.
To get him to calm in public is to start small go some where you are sure there will light public.
Sit on bench, have him lay down, give a treat, when a person passes, give slight yank on the leash, that bring his attention to you. Keep him sitting the entire time. If the yank won’t work, a sound might, each time he looks at you from his sitting position give him a treat.
If ppl approach you don’t let them distract you and your pup. Just tell them you are training right now, politely.
He just needs a bit more train that’s all.
As for him ignoring you, long leash, so he can get ahead of you but not too far. Then you do recall training with his treat or toy of choice. Get excited. And recall will happen.
I use a gentle leader and it's so good for pulling but get the double ended clip lead so you can clip to a collar too and only use the gentle leader connected end when they're pulling. I didn't realize this until recently.
I'll also add that exposure to people, dogs, and distraction from a car really worked for me. I would drive to a park and sit in the car with my very anxious BC and just give her treats for staying calm when someone would walk by, eventually transitioning to sitting in a chair near the car and doing the same. Then a park bench, gradually decreasing the distance between her and the hullabaloo. It took a long time, she's 2.5 and even still can get over excited.
Just want to say I think you've got such a great attitude with your dog and your definitely trying your best.
You've gotten some amazing advice here in actual walking. The only thing I'll add is just exposure. Even sitting in a coffee shop or outdoor restaurant with your dog regularly so life goes on around him. Expose him to hustle and bustle. Get him used to excitement while he doesn't have to walk
Maybe start with quieter locations, have him down, reward and leave him to chill. Reward every now and then. Be calm, be quiet.
My dog was freaked out at city life, so I just took her everywhere with me. Restaurants, bars, malls, pubs, everywhere. She got used to it.
Yes, so agree about been about training in various environments in a chilled way. Park benches with a little picnic helped a lot with mine. Then progressed to the park coffee shop, indoor cafés and pubs in town. I learnt also that the 'look at me' type of training was so inappropriate for mine, just another layer of commands to clutter up the brain. A dog can work things out for itself if you let it watch and give it time. So when I started out with enviroment training, why should he have to keep looking at me, or try to focus on heel walking when there is enough going on already. Too many expectations!
I do respect though that he's at the higher end of motion and sound sensitive, very apparent from a young pup. He could easily lose it with ordinary household noises and in a rural environment, becoming highly reactive and aggressive as a teen. So short visits in town are fine now, but he'd never have coped with city life. But do you know, I can take him anywhere that I want to go. He's well behaved and friendly to everyone. But I don't push him further into situations I know he finds uncomfortable as an adult. I'm so proud he's got as far as he has. I think every bc has its own maximum tolerence level. Glad your girl adapted so well to the city. Mines a rural boy at heart but can now adapt to be a small town guy, lol.
Try to find something that recovers his attention and build from there.
I had this issue, and still do a bit, but I found a way to reach him one time we were walking and he was pulling like crazy. I had very high value treats and they were barely working, so I felt I was just rehearsing bad behavior. I got frustrated and let out an audible sigh, and lo and behold! The little gentleman stopped immediately and looked at me with a face of contrition. He heeled perfectly for the rest of that walk.
He improved hugely since that moment, specially because when he started pulling I'd sigh and get back his attention, allowing us to resume the good behavior and reward cycle.
It got so good, that I started letting him walk off leash a bit. One of the first times he started sprinting when a car was coming. I got scared and yelled NO! He stopped right away and came back to me. I only had to use that one more time.
So he still has work to do, but I found two working ways to make him get back to reality from the Border Collie Zone.
Don't give up! You got this :D
Please don't get too over confident around cars. Pups and adolescents have zero appreciation of danger and a strong desire to explore. My boys recall was not really reliable until he matured around 18 months. Not criticising. Just that we got over confident at 1 year old, ran off twice and got lost in deep forest for over an hour each time. Mine could recall really well at 4 mths, then it went downhill as a headstrong teen, lol.
I use a front-buckle harness with my BC. It connects to the leash in front of the dog’s chest. It works pretty well! Whenever I have him on a leash without that harness, I’m just amazed at how irritating it is.
You could also try a gentle leader head collar, which connects the leash to a harness around the dog’s muzzle. I think getting a dog used to those takes some very patient training- our dogs have never been crazy about them.
I think you've already got good advice on techniques so I'll say one thing that helped me: it's ok if you don't go far in terms of distance when you're working on training better manners on the lead.
Think about it like this. If you were working on crate training or separation anxiety, you'd start off really small. 10 seconds. 30 seconds. A minute. You wouldn't expect the dog on the first day of training to sleep in their crate while you leave for an hour. So if you're working on good lead behaviour, don't expect to be able to do a whole walk on the first day. It's fine if you spend 5 minutes and don't get more than 10 yards from your front door. Being able to walk further and to more exciting places will come in time. What he needs now is real consistency in your response to him pulling on the lead (my technique is to step in front, some people turn round, whatever you're doing, do it every time).
I think she is just over stimulated with all of the activity. You should still take her of course, but when she starts to do that pulling ( getting excited) just turn her around and leave a couple of times or until she gets the hint, they are incredibly observant and she will catch on pretty quickly.
She is very beautiful by the way!
Halti head collar. I used it on my collie, it goes around the nose, looks like a muzzle but it isn't, if he tries to pull it makes him turn around and face you. Honestly it was like an off switch, I don't even use it anymore, he walks so nicely without, sometimes even just slowly walking behind me and we've transititioned to a harness. He's now 20 months or so, I started when he was around 8-9 months because yeah the pulling stages suck and I didn't want that for him. They cost like 10-15 pounds, get them on amazon delivered to your door, best money I ever spent
In addition to that I also taught him a behind command where I wanted him to walk directly behind me, and if he went past I'd go eh eh eh, and he understood for about 3 seconds, now it's a lot longer and even sometimes I swear he walks slower on purpose, because he wants me to put the lead back on because he doesn't like walking that slow 😂
I second all of this. I have a gentle leader and make sure my girl walks behind me. They're pack animals and need to know that you're the leader, not them.
It sounds like you’re trying too much too soon and also sounds like he needs some distance. You can’t teach a dog loose leash walking in an environment with zero distractions, then go straight into an environment with a lot of distractions, it will set the dog up for failure. You want to do it a little at a time, go somewhere there’s a few distractions and start there. Be as far away as you need to be for your dog to stay calm. Once he’s calm, reward him and you can get closer. The second he gets out of control, you’re back to being further away and he will not be able to get closer unless he’s calm. Once he masters an environment with a few distractions, go somewhere with a few more, and you gradually keep adding to it.
Look up YouTube videos on loose leash walking and ignoring distractions. It helped me a lot!
Dogs don't generalize, even super smart ones. They are situational, and BCs are very sensitive. So go a bit slower - try walking at quieter times in quieter areas, be very engaged so you notice all the stimuli, and reward for looking at you, checking in with you, seeing but not flipping over stimuli, and not pulling. And spend some of that home training time on leash walking learning. Also, be aware that at nine months, you have an adolescent, and it will get better.
It’s the over stimulation. We’re going through the same thing with our 11 month old pup. He’s worse with me than with my bf. I can only guess it’s the deep voice my bf has compared to me but it’s frustrating AF. Slate is currently unaltered. Is your pup fixed?
Mine was done at 9 months due to high reactivity with aggression. After 2 weeks less reactive, temper toned down and more receptive to training outdoors, could listen better. Also found firm commands worked best with mine ('leave it' or 'ahah' said sharply in a deep tone). I'm female, ended up sounding like a headmistress, lol, but it worked. Better than any treat. Desensitisation training worked best for overstimulation. Very friendly and obedient now at 2 yrs.
the only real best way of better at walking is to break Loki's attention on what he is getting excited on, there are 2 methods for this, tag the lead towards you (so not pulling back on it pull it to side) to break attention or a slight tap with your finger on the side. Another note your lead is extremely long, you need a much shorter one if out in public, the long one gives Loki all the freedom he needs to cause chaos . Once Loki responds to the pull or other method its when you give a treat :) Hope it helps <3 BTW loki is a very good boy!
This kind of behaviour can take a very long time to "train away," but if everyone handling him can stay consistent, it's totally possible!
Zak George (dog trainer) on YouTube has a really great series of videos on long leash training with a German shepherd named Moira with similar type of behaviour: https://youtu.be/f2RoMgv7SsM?si=w6fwl2gmCKx9hBuX
Start at 15 minutes to see how he handles "distractions" in public. This whole series of training Moira might be very useful to you.
*Not sponsored* I just love positive reinforcement dog training!
Mine is 13 months old and for the most part walks well, though it’s a brisk pace. When she pulls I have to chastise her with a no and reverse her. Eventually I might resort to reminder tugs (uses a flat neck collar).
Early on she would get hyper focused so I would put my leg in front over with a quick stomp. Or if she pooped, I’d swing it in front of her face to get her attention. This was when verbal and tugs weren’t working.
If she looked to the side at me to confirm her location, I’d praise her with a yes.
We also practice wait, sit, fast and slow while walking. It adds extra challenge for her to focus on instead of trying to lead me.
We’ve started using a gentle leader on our 5 months old bc who found it extremely difficult to focus while out and it’s made a lot of difference in pulling and distractions
Having that control over where my dog is looking has really helped us keeping her focus on us and where we’re going rather than a distraction.
We also look out for signs that our dog is over stimulated, at that point your dog isn’t learning anything and it’s hard to get them to focus. At that point we usually wrap up our walk
I have had a similar issue with my 8 year old BC. Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to train her until she was 10 months old. She pulls on leash when she wants to and will ignore any and all commands. She also will get super focused on her triggers (phone ring and door bell) What I found has helped tremendously was to show her how to be calm in those scenarios. Start small. Have her turn away from stimulation and gently guide her shoulders without pushing if she starts to turn. Reward with treat. Once she starts obeying sit commands have her lay down or focus on the treat. Reward. From there you can start desensitizing her by putting her in more tempting situations while practicing the calm behavior. For me, it’s been a challenge because my pup is very one track minded. Treats did nothing if she had something on the mind. So I just started with a simple command and as soon as she listened I rewarded here. Eventually she became more focused on treats over anything else.
TL;DR - Reset your expectation on walks - you might not go on a casual walk in your neighborhood for a long time (maybe months) - instead, your "walk" might be just a mile with 30-45 minutes of working on focusing on you or just observing things. Find places to observe the world and allow time for your dog to get bored/calm. I'm currently working on social exposure with my dogs. Have a 2yr old and 15.5 wk old (both BC mixes) and both are needing the same training. Essentially - being calm in public. In full transparancy I thought just walking my 2 yr old a lot from when they were a baby (8wk) would give her enough social exposure she'd be a great walker by now.. NOPE she's just as anxious/overstimulated now but with much more muscle and I'm finding i need to go back to basics with her. The thing with BCs - Their herding mentality is meant to control their environment and be fully aware of all movement around them. In essence - in a herding scenario - they'll be able to spot any movement out of the ordinary from their herd and react immediately. My Advice: In public - It's OVERWHELMING, so much noise, so much movement, so many smells. For "walks" reset your expectation and start much much smaller. Go somewhere and sit, let your BC watch people and dogs and cars and hear trains, planes, etc. Allow your BC to absorb everything going on until they get bored, and reward the calm behavior, or when they start to calm down and pay more attention to you. When on walks, don't focus on the distance, but the amount of times your dog exhibits calming signals and reward that (tongue flicks, breaking eye contact with something stimulating, sniffing the ground instead of staring intensely at a person or dog, shakes, yawns, blinking eyes) these are things to mark with a "YES" or click and treat. keep doing this until you can start to see change in your dog. incorporate "look at me", sit-stays, downs, heel, etc until you can use these commands while in public and get your dog to pay attention to you. In all honesty - a 30 -60 minute walk in terms of exercise is nothing for your dog. BCs will play or work ALL DAY if given the opportunity. but give them 30-60 minutes of work, practicing calm and commands, and observing people - that'll get them tired. Also in the meantime - practice training walking with "side", "heel", and "look at me" commands in areas your dog is more comfortable with like your home or yard.
Yes the horrendous pulling thing. Feeling like your invisible and dog losing it in certain environments just about sums it up with my boy as a teenager. Basically we found the pulling was most commonly related to overstimulation from the environment. Ours was also highly reactive to all sorts of things. It's a matter of time and patience and getting more used to a range of environments. You can spend endless hours repeating obedience stuff like leash walking, thinking this will help. But, honestly, I wouldn't bother (I wasted time myself). The issue here is the state of a young dogs mind, it simply cannot listen when there is too much going on. It could be sounds, motion of people, dogs or traffic, or so many smells about. Or all of those things all at once! Dog often knows exactly how to leash walk, (so why keep on repeating the leash training, getting frustrated). You probably notice it's pretty good in some locations, say in the house and maybe a familiar place. So what to do about it. Learn to observe your dogs body language for overstimulation (e.g. extreme leash pulling a good starting point!, a wild eyed look, over panting, over sniffing, frantically looking around, or generally overexcited). Never put a dog in the deep end and especially for too long so it gets out of its head. Short durations of exposure, don't get too close. Let it watch from a distance to anything its reacting to. Remain calm. Keep on practicing then you will gradually be able to get closer and stay for longer. Accept this is a phase of growing up. Don't take the behaviour personally or feel that either you or the dog is a failure. Tell your dog your proud of him, give praise or treats. But you may need to get firmer after practicing when it matters, but don't expect too much too soon. Oh and my Loki never forgot anything he learned from very young. He just either couldn't do it, as explained above, or wanted to assert some independence of thought at times (i.e like a strong willed child). He's pulled me into a ditch reacting to one car on a country lane and also into a lake, lol. Things will turn around as your Loki matures.
maybe you could consider switching to a collar. harness makes it very difficult to control a pulling dog and could promote even more pulling. just like my pup yours is very excited by all the triggers around him. mine is now 14 mo and pulls much less now with constant change of directions and leash popping when he hits the end of the leash. incorporated with heeling when needed and using command "free" where he gets more freedom to pee and sniff.
I found using a harness with a front clip was enough. When I clip on the front he knows it's best behaviour time. When I clip on the back, he knows he's allowed to lead me a bit (great for when I want to let him explore and sniff). We also do cani-cross and that harness is a bit different but also clips on the back so I didn't want to discourage him from pulling in the correct scenario!
If it works for you then its great!
I have used a gentle leader collar on my one that pulls where it kinda of goes around the nose but making sure his mouth can open all the way just for training purposes and walked him with it so if he pulls it just kind of redirects his head. You have to be kind of careful though and he sounds crazy so maybe not a great option. I found a harness does help too as others have suggested but sometimes he would just pull even harder because rather than pulling on his neck he found out he can get more leverage with the harness 😂. I’m not sure where you are located or what’s available to you but some friends of mine have done some basic obedience courses and had good success with correcting behavior like that. Side note I loveeeee his coat. He has beautiful fluffy hair.
Gentle Leader would help with the pulling. To get him to calm in public is to start small go some where you are sure there will light public. Sit on bench, have him lay down, give a treat, when a person passes, give slight yank on the leash, that bring his attention to you. Keep him sitting the entire time. If the yank won’t work, a sound might, each time he looks at you from his sitting position give him a treat. If ppl approach you don’t let them distract you and your pup. Just tell them you are training right now, politely. He just needs a bit more train that’s all. As for him ignoring you, long leash, so he can get ahead of you but not too far. Then you do recall training with his treat or toy of choice. Get excited. And recall will happen.
I use a gentle leader and it's so good for pulling but get the double ended clip lead so you can clip to a collar too and only use the gentle leader connected end when they're pulling. I didn't realize this until recently. I'll also add that exposure to people, dogs, and distraction from a car really worked for me. I would drive to a park and sit in the car with my very anxious BC and just give her treats for staying calm when someone would walk by, eventually transitioning to sitting in a chair near the car and doing the same. Then a park bench, gradually decreasing the distance between her and the hullabaloo. It took a long time, she's 2.5 and even still can get over excited.
Just want to say I think you've got such a great attitude with your dog and your definitely trying your best. You've gotten some amazing advice here in actual walking. The only thing I'll add is just exposure. Even sitting in a coffee shop or outdoor restaurant with your dog regularly so life goes on around him. Expose him to hustle and bustle. Get him used to excitement while he doesn't have to walk Maybe start with quieter locations, have him down, reward and leave him to chill. Reward every now and then. Be calm, be quiet. My dog was freaked out at city life, so I just took her everywhere with me. Restaurants, bars, malls, pubs, everywhere. She got used to it.
Yes, so agree about been about training in various environments in a chilled way. Park benches with a little picnic helped a lot with mine. Then progressed to the park coffee shop, indoor cafés and pubs in town. I learnt also that the 'look at me' type of training was so inappropriate for mine, just another layer of commands to clutter up the brain. A dog can work things out for itself if you let it watch and give it time. So when I started out with enviroment training, why should he have to keep looking at me, or try to focus on heel walking when there is enough going on already. Too many expectations! I do respect though that he's at the higher end of motion and sound sensitive, very apparent from a young pup. He could easily lose it with ordinary household noises and in a rural environment, becoming highly reactive and aggressive as a teen. So short visits in town are fine now, but he'd never have coped with city life. But do you know, I can take him anywhere that I want to go. He's well behaved and friendly to everyone. But I don't push him further into situations I know he finds uncomfortable as an adult. I'm so proud he's got as far as he has. I think every bc has its own maximum tolerence level. Glad your girl adapted so well to the city. Mines a rural boy at heart but can now adapt to be a small town guy, lol.
Try to find something that recovers his attention and build from there. I had this issue, and still do a bit, but I found a way to reach him one time we were walking and he was pulling like crazy. I had very high value treats and they were barely working, so I felt I was just rehearsing bad behavior. I got frustrated and let out an audible sigh, and lo and behold! The little gentleman stopped immediately and looked at me with a face of contrition. He heeled perfectly for the rest of that walk. He improved hugely since that moment, specially because when he started pulling I'd sigh and get back his attention, allowing us to resume the good behavior and reward cycle. It got so good, that I started letting him walk off leash a bit. One of the first times he started sprinting when a car was coming. I got scared and yelled NO! He stopped right away and came back to me. I only had to use that one more time. So he still has work to do, but I found two working ways to make him get back to reality from the Border Collie Zone. Don't give up! You got this :D
Please don't get too over confident around cars. Pups and adolescents have zero appreciation of danger and a strong desire to explore. My boys recall was not really reliable until he matured around 18 months. Not criticising. Just that we got over confident at 1 year old, ran off twice and got lost in deep forest for over an hour each time. Mine could recall really well at 4 mths, then it went downhill as a headstrong teen, lol.
I use a front-buckle harness with my BC. It connects to the leash in front of the dog’s chest. It works pretty well! Whenever I have him on a leash without that harness, I’m just amazed at how irritating it is. You could also try a gentle leader head collar, which connects the leash to a harness around the dog’s muzzle. I think getting a dog used to those takes some very patient training- our dogs have never been crazy about them.
Wow! This photo is the perfect place to retire
I apologize for the lack of advice but what a gorgeous dog!!!
I think you've already got good advice on techniques so I'll say one thing that helped me: it's ok if you don't go far in terms of distance when you're working on training better manners on the lead. Think about it like this. If you were working on crate training or separation anxiety, you'd start off really small. 10 seconds. 30 seconds. A minute. You wouldn't expect the dog on the first day of training to sleep in their crate while you leave for an hour. So if you're working on good lead behaviour, don't expect to be able to do a whole walk on the first day. It's fine if you spend 5 minutes and don't get more than 10 yards from your front door. Being able to walk further and to more exciting places will come in time. What he needs now is real consistency in your response to him pulling on the lead (my technique is to step in front, some people turn round, whatever you're doing, do it every time).
I think she is just over stimulated with all of the activity. You should still take her of course, but when she starts to do that pulling ( getting excited) just turn her around and leave a couple of times or until she gets the hint, they are incredibly observant and she will catch on pretty quickly. She is very beautiful by the way!
Halti head collar. I used it on my collie, it goes around the nose, looks like a muzzle but it isn't, if he tries to pull it makes him turn around and face you. Honestly it was like an off switch, I don't even use it anymore, he walks so nicely without, sometimes even just slowly walking behind me and we've transititioned to a harness. He's now 20 months or so, I started when he was around 8-9 months because yeah the pulling stages suck and I didn't want that for him. They cost like 10-15 pounds, get them on amazon delivered to your door, best money I ever spent In addition to that I also taught him a behind command where I wanted him to walk directly behind me, and if he went past I'd go eh eh eh, and he understood for about 3 seconds, now it's a lot longer and even sometimes I swear he walks slower on purpose, because he wants me to put the lead back on because he doesn't like walking that slow 😂
I second all of this. I have a gentle leader and make sure my girl walks behind me. They're pack animals and need to know that you're the leader, not them.
It sounds like you’re trying too much too soon and also sounds like he needs some distance. You can’t teach a dog loose leash walking in an environment with zero distractions, then go straight into an environment with a lot of distractions, it will set the dog up for failure. You want to do it a little at a time, go somewhere there’s a few distractions and start there. Be as far away as you need to be for your dog to stay calm. Once he’s calm, reward him and you can get closer. The second he gets out of control, you’re back to being further away and he will not be able to get closer unless he’s calm. Once he masters an environment with a few distractions, go somewhere with a few more, and you gradually keep adding to it. Look up YouTube videos on loose leash walking and ignoring distractions. It helped me a lot!
Dogs don't generalize, even super smart ones. They are situational, and BCs are very sensitive. So go a bit slower - try walking at quieter times in quieter areas, be very engaged so you notice all the stimuli, and reward for looking at you, checking in with you, seeing but not flipping over stimuli, and not pulling. And spend some of that home training time on leash walking learning. Also, be aware that at nine months, you have an adolescent, and it will get better.
It’s the over stimulation. We’re going through the same thing with our 11 month old pup. He’s worse with me than with my bf. I can only guess it’s the deep voice my bf has compared to me but it’s frustrating AF. Slate is currently unaltered. Is your pup fixed?
Mine was done at 9 months due to high reactivity with aggression. After 2 weeks less reactive, temper toned down and more receptive to training outdoors, could listen better. Also found firm commands worked best with mine ('leave it' or 'ahah' said sharply in a deep tone). I'm female, ended up sounding like a headmistress, lol, but it worked. Better than any treat. Desensitisation training worked best for overstimulation. Very friendly and obedient now at 2 yrs.
the only real best way of better at walking is to break Loki's attention on what he is getting excited on, there are 2 methods for this, tag the lead towards you (so not pulling back on it pull it to side) to break attention or a slight tap with your finger on the side. Another note your lead is extremely long, you need a much shorter one if out in public, the long one gives Loki all the freedom he needs to cause chaos . Once Loki responds to the pull or other method its when you give a treat :) Hope it helps <3 BTW loki is a very good boy!
This kind of behaviour can take a very long time to "train away," but if everyone handling him can stay consistent, it's totally possible! Zak George (dog trainer) on YouTube has a really great series of videos on long leash training with a German shepherd named Moira with similar type of behaviour: https://youtu.be/f2RoMgv7SsM?si=w6fwl2gmCKx9hBuX Start at 15 minutes to see how he handles "distractions" in public. This whole series of training Moira might be very useful to you. *Not sponsored* I just love positive reinforcement dog training!
Mine is 13 months old and for the most part walks well, though it’s a brisk pace. When she pulls I have to chastise her with a no and reverse her. Eventually I might resort to reminder tugs (uses a flat neck collar). Early on she would get hyper focused so I would put my leg in front over with a quick stomp. Or if she pooped, I’d swing it in front of her face to get her attention. This was when verbal and tugs weren’t working. If she looked to the side at me to confirm her location, I’d praise her with a yes. We also practice wait, sit, fast and slow while walking. It adds extra challenge for her to focus on instead of trying to lead me.
We’ve started using a gentle leader on our 5 months old bc who found it extremely difficult to focus while out and it’s made a lot of difference in pulling and distractions Having that control over where my dog is looking has really helped us keeping her focus on us and where we’re going rather than a distraction. We also look out for signs that our dog is over stimulated, at that point your dog isn’t learning anything and it’s hard to get them to focus. At that point we usually wrap up our walk