How To Calmly Walk a Pair of Dogs

Barron and Tony a pair of Goldendoodles in Omaha, needed to stop pulling on the leash and learned how to use our structured walk exercise.

After I arrived I sat down to chat with Barron and Tony’s guardians about their main dog behavior concerns. One of their concerns was that the dogs pulled on the leash and they wanted to accomplish loose leash walking. To do this we used a flat leash, as to not cause harm to the dogs in any way, and used our structured walk exercise which you can watch below.

As you can see in the video the dogs took to this exercise very quickly and well. The goal of this exercise is to have the leash loose at all times, so the dogs don’t experience the opposition reflex, which is when they naturally pull against pressure. Since dogs naturally pull against pressure this is why most harnesses end up teaching dogs to pull because it becomes self-reinforcing for them.

By the end of the dog training session Tony and Barron were able to go for a walk calmly with their owners and were looking to them for leadership and direction. As a Goldendoodle trainer, I suggest to keep up with this overall good behavior I want to remind their guardians to keep Petting with a Purpose and have good timing and consistency. We wrapped up this dog behavior session with Tony and Barron’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.