Teaching a Dog to Stay Calm When Being Leashed for Better Walk Behavior

For this Los Angeles dog training session, we teach 4 year-old Jack Russell Charlie to stay calm when being leashed up to help her listen and behave better on walks.

Just like humans, dogs are more likely to get into trouble when they are in an unbalanced state of mind. Many people confuse excitement for happiness when it comes to dogs. But a dog can be happy and calm, and staying calm can help eliminate many dog behavior problems before they grow into something more serious.

One of the activities that gets dogs the most excited is getting leashed up for a walk. But the energy your dog has while you attach the leash is the energy they will carry on the walk. This excited state often causes dogs to act in ways that can cause problems.

I show Charlie’s amazing guardians (they are super nice and were a lot of fun to work with) how to teach a dog to stay calm when being leashed up in the following free dog training video.

Im guessing Charlie will be more excited and move in front right away when the humans use this secret to stopping over excitement in dogs. Although we didn’t fully accomplish it in the above video, Im confident the guardians will teach the dog to stay calm before walks in no time. No you don’t have to be a professional Jack Russell trainer to teach a dog to stay calm when being leashed up.

My real concerns with Charlie is the humans enforcing the rules I suggested earlier in the session. Its hard for many people to enforce rules, even after I explain why we often have a negative perception of rules and why. But when your dog is as cute as Charlie, its even more challenging.

After a brief text convo after the session, Im optimistic the guardians will tough it out and get their cuddling done on the floor for the next month or two until Charlie stops acting aggressive towards other dogs.

For most of my clients, adding in rules and structure help reduce or stop dog on dog aggression. But in some cases, we need to do a short follow up session to bring in another dog and flesh things out completely. I asked the guardians to stay in touch and let me know if they aren’t seeing an end to dog aggression (or at least a big reduction) within a month or so.

To help the humans remember all the dog behavior secrets I shared in this in home dog training session, we shot a roadmap to success video that you can watch below.