Transforming the walk!

[yogabeary]

"....you should be able to transform your walks with your dog into time together that you both enjoy. The most important thing to remember is that until your dog is well trained (and even afterwards) your walks together should be primarily about satisfying your dog’s deepest desires – their need to hunt and satisfy their prey instinct. "

WOW! I am actually enjoying walking Jack now that I have given up trying to make it about making him heel and stopping him from sniffing and ranging and looking at passing dogs etc. I have taken his food with me in a pouch on our last two walks and instead of correcting him and constantly stopping and getting him to come back beside me I simply kept food at the ready and every time he heeled or looked and gave me his attention I zinged him. Surprise - he hardly pulled at all. When he did pull I would turn and jog and he would 'chase' me and then we would resume our walk. I interspersed with pushing - not that he really pushes yet -just moves towards me. It was soooo much more fun for both of us and now he comes inside and sleeps for hours afterwards.

One question - how do people carry tug toys, walk, hold lead and zing food at the same time? I need another hand!

[Chris]

Originally Posted by yogabeary

One question - how do people carry tug toys, walk, hold lead and zing food at the same time? I need another hand!

Only ONE more hand, I need 3

For me I often go to area's with open space so it's the 50ft lead but when we are close to the road or a narrow spot that needs to be reeled in to 6ft so that's two hands fulls, food pouch with tug toy pushed into belt and to think in the old days I used to also carry a SLR camera with me

So pleased to hear the walk is much better for you both, keep having fun.

[neilsattin]

I'm so glad to hear that your walks have been transformed.

Typically, if I have both tug toys and a food pouch, I'll carry tug toys under my leash-holding arm. I should get a photo of the "whole picture" to clarify, but imagine:

You have your food pouch strapped on, on the side of your food hand.

You have your dog on a leash. As for holding the leash, you have a couple options:

• One-handed. Just hold the leash in your non-food-distributing hand. So if you feed with your right hand, you'd hold the leash in your left hand. And have tug toy(s) under your left arm - in your armpit.
• Two-handed. I hold the leash mid-way up with my left hand. And then hold the loop end in my right hand. This way I have both hands on the leash for strength, but can easily drop the loop to grab food out of the pouch and maintain one hand's hold on the leash at the same time.

Note that also if you have food and a tug toy you really only need ONE tug toy (instead of the normal two). You can trade food for the tug toy, and also use the proximity of your on-leash dog to simply grab hold of the one tug toy (that's already in their mouth) to re-initiate tug. That way you only have one toy to manage instead of two, and you can just tuck it under your belt if you want it completely out of the way (instead of under your arm).

Does that make sense?

[neilsattin]

Oh, and don't forget your notebook.