Helping a Pacific Palisades Poodle Mix with His Behavior on Walks

For this Pacific Palisades dog training session we worked with Hiccup, a 7 year-old Poodle mix who is reactive to other dogs on walks.

Hiccup is the guardians first dog and boy did she pick a good one. Smart, easy going, eagles to please and non shedding. What more can you ask for.

We spent the first part of the session going over a number of simple dog training tips and dog behavior secrets to make sure the guardian didn’t inadvertently teach Hiccup to misbehave or confuse him into thinking he had more rank or social status than he actually had.

Because the family includes 2 pre teen boys, I spent some time explaining my petting with a purpose approach and then shared my secret method to motivate children to interact with the dog in positive, beneficial ways. I always get a kick out of this as Im basically showing people how to use positive dog training methods to teach and motivate the kids to handle a dog properly.

Because Hiccup didnt seem to know how to sit on command, I showed the humans how to teach him to sit, lay down, stand up and come. If they forget any of the commands or ways to train a dog to obey them, this video will help them remember.

Next up, I wanted to show the guardian how to have a more productive walk; one that helps the dog see the human acting as an authority figure. These leash training tips will help Hiccup behave on walks.

Another dog walking tip is to wear your dog out a bit before the walk. This is especially helpful for people with high energy dogs. I wouldn’t put Hiccup in that category, but since he has been dog reactive, exercising him before meeting other dogs is a good way to give him a small advantage. When you are leash training a dog aggressive dog, its wise to take advantage of any opportunity you can get.

His guardian may want to get an mini iFetch which would allow Hiccup to play fetch with himself inside any time he felt the need.

Dogs can act aggressively towards other dogs for many reasons. One of these is the perception that the human needs the dog to guard or defend the people. If this is the case with Hiccup, enforcement of the rules and additional structure should help Hiccup feel more confident in his guardian’s leadership. She should start to see an improvement in his dog dog behavior within a few weeks. If he continues, we may need to set up a follow up session to do some Behavior adjustment Training.

To help the guardian remember all the dog behavior advice and tips I shared in this in home dog training session, we shot a roadmap to success video.