Building strong foundations for your loose lead walking

In the last blog, we looked at the many reasons why dogs pull on the lead and why it’s never about them being stubborn or choosing not to listen to you. If you haven’t read that yet, it’s a great place to start.

This blog is going to help you work on laying strong engagement foundations that will set your dog up for real success, not just with their loose lead walking, but also with recall and other behaviours.  

As we laid out in the last blog, you are effectively competing with everything else in the environment, so teaching your dog to engage with you is critical, otherwise they will focus on everything else and forget about you. 

By laying strong foundations, we can quickly build a solid history of reinforcement for our dogs for engaging with us, initially in easy places such as your home, and gradually building them up to be able to do it in more distracting environments.

So what exactly is engagement?

Engagement is your dog choosing to notice you, check in with you, and respond to you voluntarily without constant prompting.  And you need to be ready to engage with your dog when they do choose this option.  If they are offering you lovely eye contact and you are staring at your phone, they will stop trying – it is definitely training for both ends of the lead!

There are a couple of really easy ways you can start to teach your dog that checking in with you can be hugely reinforcing. 

1 - Eye contact – the strongest of foundations

One of the simplest ways to build engagement is by reinforcing voluntary eye contact.  This means your dog choosing to look at you, not being asked or lured, but offering it themselves.

How to start:

• Drop 5-10 pieces of food on the ground, one after the other, about half a second apart.

• All your dog has to do is eat them. 

• When you stop, wait for your dog to look at you (wondering why you stopped dropping the goodies)

• The moment your dog looks up at you, mark it (“good”) and drop another, then repeat every time they look at you.

  You’re teaching your dog that looking at you makes good things happen.  You can start doing this in different ways too.  For example if your dog wants you to open the back door, stand with your hand on the handle and wait until they look up at you, mark it (“good”) and open the door.

2 - Response to name – creating an automatic response

Your dog’s name is just another sound to them – we need to make it meaningful so that they automatically look at you when you say it.  Think about a time you were in a foreign country and you heard someone say your name – even though you didn’t know anyone there, you would probably automatically look around!  This is what we are aiming for with this exercise.

To start:

• Say your dog’s name once

• The moment they turn their head towards you, mark (“good”) and reward

• Keep it easy to start with (low distraction environment), then gradually build up distractions

  If your dog doesn’t respond, avoid repeating it. Instead, wait until they are less distracted, or move to a quieter area and try again.  Each time you say their name and they look at you, you mark and reward.  This is how you will get a super strong reflex to name.

Don’t miss the check-ins!

When you are starting out on this journey, it takes a while for you to hone your vigilance.  Try not to miss any opportunities when your dog checks in with you, as we don’t want them to stop doing it as they feel like it isn’t working.  As soon as they look at you, mark and reward – and if you do it in a really fun way, you make it all the more reinforcing.

Remember that teaching your dog to engage doesn’t mean you want them checking in with you every second of their walk.  We still want them doing all the other stuff that they enjoy, but we want them also coming and checking in so you get a lovely balance.  Plus they will feel happier and you will feel less stressed so what’s not to love!

In the next blog, we are going to be look at getting set up with the mechanics of the actual loose lead walking training so keep an eye out for that!

If you’d like help building engagement and focus with your dog, I run training walks and one-to-one sessions in Romford, Essex and surrounding areas. Feel free to

 or keep an eye out for upcoming events.