This morning I decided to take Luna for a long walk on her collar, which means the leash MUST be loose.
She was a star. Look At That when passing other dogs, even in close quarters with Luna on the side of the other dog. Lots of connection, attention and joy.
Only time she really pulls is when her nose gets the better of her. Back up, she releases pressure, click and send her back to sniff. Once is enough not to let her tighten the leash again. We had about 4 moments like that. Part of this issue is that I have a tendency to follow her when she sniffs, in which case I'm telling her that pulling when she smells something is OK. That happened the first time she took off sniffing. Oops. This is clearly a habit I need to work on. After that first time, I was paying attention and we worked on 'you can't sniff over there unless the leash is loose.'
Also tossed treats way out ahead of us several times while walking, and she did better than I expected. Of about 10 tossed treats, she started to pull twice, and immediately came off the pressure when I took a step back. Other than that I could walk her right up to the treat, and she wouldn't go for it until I clicked. Cool!
Something I realized today; when I walk her in a harness, that's Luna's cue that I am not In The Game and thus she isn't In The Game. When walking her on a collar, I AM In The Game and thus, so is she. Hello, duh!
Also, I learned that her LL is better than I thought; I don't walk her much on a collar because I think working on LL is hard work, but actually we had a great time and it wasn't nearly as brain-consuming as I thought.
Hopefully, that means I'll be working on her LL skills more often. We definitely still need work on approaching cookie ladies and doggie friends.
Overall conclusion; this was FUN!
I'll try posting one last time! Each successive attempt gets shorter as I try to figure this out.
ReplyDeleteI try to remember to "review" LL L2S1 (giving to collar pressure) often because you can NEVER review it too often (IMHU! smile)
Yes, I do that too. Love it. If I find myself doing more than the occasional 'reminder back-up' I do some L2S1 before we go on our walk, and this time I did some here and there while we walked. Couldn't fool her. She moved even before *I* could really feel the pressure. :D Now just have to work a bit more on being consistent myself, because for all the things she tries to pull, I've always allowed her to do so because I am horribly shy about training in public (a.k.a people within earshot). It literally makes my heart race. So now I have well over 6 years of habit to change in both of us.
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