Basic focus and leashwork with a pug

This is the very first workout with a Pug who's usually allowed to walk wherever on the leash. Keep in mind that the driveway is a lower-distraction environment, so there is not the usual desperation to go elsewhere.

I like to do a short walk to determine how well the dog's focus on me is at first. You'll notice I'm deadpan--no motivation, no communication through the leash or vocally. This tells me how interested the dog is in things other than myself. I like to stop to observe what the dog dogs when I become a hitching post. I like to do some turns to see if the dog has any notion of following my lead or if she's just following because she runs out of leash. Further annotations are within the video.

Lilly is worked on a 3mm 16" training collar. Although the length was correct, it turned out to be too heavy for her. Later sessions were done with a 2.5mm 16", which was a much better fit. Believe it or not, that same size was used on the Toller in earlier videos!

Keep in mind the personality of this dog. She is very sociable and friendly for the most part, but also does not like some new situations and seems to respond to them with fear and/or uncertainty. You'll see here that she encounters some new sensations and situations--and her response is to either panic or freeze. The goal with her is to guide her through this, keep her brain moving forward, and boost her confidence through teaching her that she receives praise for making good choices.

The armchair dog-trainer might view this and ask: is the training collar really necessary? With her, I would say maybe not, but I would rather have the option to give her a safe, effective correction. As you can see, the goal of this is to teach her to not pull, which eliminates the risk of a collapsing trachea that results FROM pulling, and the training collar is tight around her neck for not even a second throughout the whole clip (except when I am guiding her from my right side). The harness takes pressure off her trachea, but it also allows her to pull. By teaching focus on me and walking in a basic heel position, this eliminates the pulling completely.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Pug
• Walk
• Focus
• Dog
• Basic
• Training