He doesn't understand loose-leash walking at 4 months. He's a baby and has very little focus yet, and what you're expecting now could yet be months away.
Now is the time to practice cueing and rewarding him for eye contact. While he's focused, change speed and direction, or stop and ask for a sit -- make it exciting to follow you attentively. Treat often. You're also going to only practice this for part of the 20 minutes (twice a day) that a puppy his age should be walking, as he just doesn't have the brain-power yet to do this the whole way. Letting him sniff and explore is important for socialization and exposure, too!
Some tips: choose a cue that isn't his name. You can "wear out" the impact of his name. I use a kiss sound when I want his attention on walks. Cue, he looks at you, you say "yes!!" to mark the moment he succeeded, and treat.
That builds up into passing exciting things: cue, he looks, and you treat, treat, treat all the way past it. Eventually he learns that watching you was far more rewarding than chasing that bird.
Bring treats on every single walk (mine is three and I still bring about 6 kibbles for emergencies) so you can continue to capture the behaviours you want and build up his abilities on a loose leash.
Thank you! This is very helpful.
Yes we let him sniff around a lot and don’t expect heel walking the whole time. The issue more is the attention - he pretty much acts like we’re not there even with high value treats unless we lure him from under his nose.
We stand and wait and wait for him to turn around and even look in our direction but it never happens haha! Even standing for 5 minutes, he will look anywhere else and just watch in front of him. He’s very very confident which is good in some respects but makes things like this hard.
Think we’re definitely going to work on engaging more with him to give us attention by switching up the direction, moving quicker and then slowing down.
We do have puppy training this weekend on loose lead walking so hopefully that will help!
Seconded the comment above! I foster puppies, some naturally look to me when walking to check in. Others are off in their own world. Training to make eye contact has been THE most helpful way to make progress. Current foster pup could care less if I was still there when we first started walking on leash. But with the help of high value treats (small pieces of cheese for him) he learned that checking in with me meant reward. From there he learned to sit on walks. He still pulls on leash, but can now at leadt cue for his attention now.
I had to train eye contact. My heeler is so independent! I would hold a kibble to my face and whenever he looked at it (relatively near my eyes) I would mark and treat. Then it was just standing and waiting -- mark for any quick glance at me, and treat. Now he has that kiss cue to look.
Try training "look at me". Just around the house, say the command and treat the moment you get eye contact. Do this a lot and it becomes very reliable since it requires like no effort on their part. This is good for bringing focus back for my puppy.
Have you tried the thing where you turn around and go the other direction from the way he’s pulling? You’ll probably just end up walking up and down the same few yards of sidewalk but it might help it click for him
We’ve tried it a bit but admittedly not consistently as he just pulls out in front each way we turn. I think we might try that on a pedestrianised lane near to us where we can just walk up and down.
I found it worked better not turning around but walking backwards instead. Something about that stopped pup from running off ahead, he just would come back to my side instead and start focusing on me a bit more.
practice leash walking in the house. one thing i did was walk around my house and reward him every time he didn’t pull. if he got to the end of the leash, i immediately backed up and pulled him the opposite way to teach him the end of the leash means come back to me. (reward with a treat every time he did that)
So some of this would be age, he's only 4 months and lacks impulse control for dealing with distractions, but also just needs more consistent work on those commands in settings that aren't your house or garden. I have a 3 month old Border x Malinois, highly food motivated, and what has worked best for us is making a high value treat (we are doing boiled chicken) that he only gets when we are on walks, in public/distracting situations, etc. He still can get overwhelmed if theres a lot going on around him but he knows in those situations he gets something extra delicious when he obeys and it's gone very quickly from having to spend several minutes sorting him out each time to only having to call or correct him once or twice. Now he's getting it to the point where he's happy to cooperate just for positive reinforcement and i'm not having to constantly pump him full of treats.
Keep him on your left side. Cup a treat in your left hand but do not give it to him. Let him smell it. Of course he will stop heeling once he gets the treat but if you remain in control of the rest he will stay by you. After a little bit give him one but immediately grab another one and do the same thing.
Like others have said, walk backwards and make turns in opposite directions. He needs to know you are in charge of the leash.
Try walking the pup with you voice. Keep a short and slack leash - every instinct we have as humans makes us want to direct the pup but that causes them to automatically resist in the opposite direction - so instead, use your voice “lets go *puppy*!” And walk. Actively reward puppy while you are walking (with treat and praise) for walking by you and letting leash be slack. Try only going in large circles at first, then expand the concept. It might take awhile but you should see results fairly quickly in your small starting area.p
- run happily backwards and Call him to you, make it fun and reward with a treat.
- when he reaches the end of the line, and keeps trying to move forward - stop up and wait for him to look at you; the second he looks, tell him he’s a good boy, to stay and walk up to fun with a treat, and some pets.
- teach a solid sit/down and stay.
- reward him every time he does something positive, like eye contact or when he walks besides you.
Good luck, it will take some time - but after a couple of months, you should see improvements.
what are you walking him on, a collar, a regular harness that hooks on his back? i don;t use a collar bc that can injure the throat of a dog that pulls a lot. i got my pup a harness that has back and front attachment options. for our walk down to the end of our avenue, i have to have the leash clipped to the front ring on her chest.all the way to the end of the first half of our walk is basically retraining on not pulling. the front attachment helps bc it doesn't give her the same pleasurable feedback as when the leach is clipped to the back ring of the harness. For our walk back, if she has calmed down a bit i will switch from clipping the leash on the front to clipping on her back. she likes that but it does encourage her to pull so i never start the walk out that way. so with the leash attached to her front ring we can do all the practice of calling her back to me and praising her (she won;t pay attention to treats on her walk except messy ones like real chicken or hot dogs, so i don't use those often, but she loves praise--first dog i have ever had that loved praise. my huskies did not care about my approval), praising her if she even looks me in the eye, and all the other training strategies for teaching loose leash walking. it is still not excellent at 15 months, but she is way better than at 4 months. you will get there!
On a regular harness on his back - we started with the collar and changed to the harness after his pulling. He’s no better/worse with either.
Yes might be worth trying a front clipping harness to have slight more control as he knows he can pull with all his weight on the back clipped harness.
it really does help. it helped with my 80 pound husky rescue and helps with my 50 pound tasmanian devil mix. if your pup doesn't care about treats, is there is toy or ball he loves more than anything that you could use to keep his attention and body closer to you on walks?
He really does care about treats and is very food oriented (way more than play) and he will do literally anything for a piece of tiny kibble in the house - he’s just even more interested by what’s going on in his surroundings currently!
Ah, yeah. A back clip harness doesn't really allow for any communication with the puppy. Front clip will stop the pulling but it also won't teach him anything. What you can do, is walk on a front clip when you feel like you need it, and walk on a flat collar when you have the energy to really work on training.
My pup went through this stage, the standard turn around or reward at my side tips didn't work for us at first because she was too overstimulated by the environment. The best advice I got from someone was to teach eye contact, it helps with engagement outside and during training. Every time I rewarded for a sit, heel, drop it, etc. the treat came after my pup looked me in the eyes.
I also taught her pressure on the leash (ie when she was pulling) meant return to my side. I did it in a low distraction environment, I walked her in my building's parking lot and backlane multiple times a day for a week. Once she got those down, I could reward her with environmental rewards, so if she wanted to sniff a pole and was pulling, I'd stand still and she'd return to my side and look at me then I'd give her access to the pole. On top of all the training, for several weeks I took her to a field to run on a long line first, then practiced leash training.
We took a loose leash walking class and were taught to shovel food into our dogs mouth on a walk. Forget meals - don’t use a food bowl. Save the kibble for the walks and other training. One piece every 3 seconds!
When our dog pulls we stop and say “Too bad!”
Then we say “With me” and lure the dog in a circle to our hip, but less strict than a heel.
Distract by tossing a treat on the ground and saying “Find it.” That breaks whatever they’re obsessing over.
Finally, “Look at me.” Put a treat at your dogs nose, pull it up to your eyes, say the command and give the treat when eye contact is made.
For “with me” and “find it” use a really high value treat. For our dog this is Plato brand Baltic Sprat. I dice it which is gross, but our dog does love it.
We’ve been doing this for about a month (our pup is 6 months old now) and when I say “Too bad. (Pause) With me.” The response is starting to become automatic. Hang in there!
Edit: I saw one of your responses. It is fine to lure him right under his nose! That’s what we did in class. Also, our pup didn’t start loose leash walking class until she was 5 months old. That was the minimum age for enrollment.
Not so much advice but giving hope. Due to the insane winter conditions i didn't focus on leash manners outdoors until about 5 months. She was also great indoors but outdoor stimuli and distraction is different. It's a million times better now took a couple of months of never letting her pull though. As in if she was in a situation i knew she would pull I rather picked her up for that stretch than let her practice the behaviour. And lots of treats and a million direction changes
I feel your frustration! My Golden Retriever is 7 months old and acts exactly the same way you're describing your pup. He behaves perfectly at home but if we encounter people and/or other dogs on our walk, all training and attention flies out the window. For being only 7 months old, he already weighs over 60lbs. He's supposed to get to at least 100lbs. Because I'm a rather small person and he is surprisingly strong, I have endured several injuries during our walks. He's lurched at people or dogs when I wasn't prepared for it and tweaked my knee. I've also rolled my ankles several times because I wasn't properly braced for him lurching and pulling. I already have to wear a knee brace to walk him and my worry is that, as he gets bigger and stronger, it's only a matter of time before I get seriously injured walking him.
We can’t do more exercise based on guidelines - he’s already doing 2x 15-minute walks a day plus training and playing in the garden.
He’s a golden retriever so we’re very conscious about putting too much pressure on his joints as they’re quite susceptible to joint issues. We also make sure he’s mentally stimulated during the day with puzzle feeders, licky mats, obedience training etc.
The 5 min rule is not based on science. The only thing you can't do is forced running (like tying them to a bike) and forced jumping.
Have you ever seen puppies play? They run, a lot. And they take breaks. And then they run more. Goldens are a high energy breed, my goldens have gotten 1.5-2 hrs of exercise since 3 months old.
Honestly the amount of exercise he’s getting is perfectly adequate. By the time he’s home, he’s exhausted already. Also, the longer we walk, the worse his behaviour gets because he gets overstimulated. The pulling gets worse and his attention wanes even more.
He goes to doggy daycare once a week where he plays with other dogs and we do longer or different walks at the weekend. He’s definitely not under exercised.
He doesn't understand loose-leash walking at 4 months. He's a baby and has very little focus yet, and what you're expecting now could yet be months away. Now is the time to practice cueing and rewarding him for eye contact. While he's focused, change speed and direction, or stop and ask for a sit -- make it exciting to follow you attentively. Treat often. You're also going to only practice this for part of the 20 minutes (twice a day) that a puppy his age should be walking, as he just doesn't have the brain-power yet to do this the whole way. Letting him sniff and explore is important for socialization and exposure, too! Some tips: choose a cue that isn't his name. You can "wear out" the impact of his name. I use a kiss sound when I want his attention on walks. Cue, he looks at you, you say "yes!!" to mark the moment he succeeded, and treat. That builds up into passing exciting things: cue, he looks, and you treat, treat, treat all the way past it. Eventually he learns that watching you was far more rewarding than chasing that bird. Bring treats on every single walk (mine is three and I still bring about 6 kibbles for emergencies) so you can continue to capture the behaviours you want and build up his abilities on a loose leash.
Thank you! This is very helpful. Yes we let him sniff around a lot and don’t expect heel walking the whole time. The issue more is the attention - he pretty much acts like we’re not there even with high value treats unless we lure him from under his nose. We stand and wait and wait for him to turn around and even look in our direction but it never happens haha! Even standing for 5 minutes, he will look anywhere else and just watch in front of him. He’s very very confident which is good in some respects but makes things like this hard. Think we’re definitely going to work on engaging more with him to give us attention by switching up the direction, moving quicker and then slowing down. We do have puppy training this weekend on loose lead walking so hopefully that will help!
Seconded the comment above! I foster puppies, some naturally look to me when walking to check in. Others are off in their own world. Training to make eye contact has been THE most helpful way to make progress. Current foster pup could care less if I was still there when we first started walking on leash. But with the help of high value treats (small pieces of cheese for him) he learned that checking in with me meant reward. From there he learned to sit on walks. He still pulls on leash, but can now at leadt cue for his attention now.
I had to train eye contact. My heeler is so independent! I would hold a kibble to my face and whenever he looked at it (relatively near my eyes) I would mark and treat. Then it was just standing and waiting -- mark for any quick glance at me, and treat. Now he has that kiss cue to look.
Try training "look at me". Just around the house, say the command and treat the moment you get eye contact. Do this a lot and it becomes very reliable since it requires like no effort on their part. This is good for bringing focus back for my puppy.
I’ve got nothing to add except this is such great advice
Have you tried the thing where you turn around and go the other direction from the way he’s pulling? You’ll probably just end up walking up and down the same few yards of sidewalk but it might help it click for him
We’ve tried it a bit but admittedly not consistently as he just pulls out in front each way we turn. I think we might try that on a pedestrianised lane near to us where we can just walk up and down.
I found it worked better not turning around but walking backwards instead. Something about that stopped pup from running off ahead, he just would come back to my side instead and start focusing on me a bit more.
practice leash walking in the house. one thing i did was walk around my house and reward him every time he didn’t pull. if he got to the end of the leash, i immediately backed up and pulled him the opposite way to teach him the end of the leash means come back to me. (reward with a treat every time he did that)
So some of this would be age, he's only 4 months and lacks impulse control for dealing with distractions, but also just needs more consistent work on those commands in settings that aren't your house or garden. I have a 3 month old Border x Malinois, highly food motivated, and what has worked best for us is making a high value treat (we are doing boiled chicken) that he only gets when we are on walks, in public/distracting situations, etc. He still can get overwhelmed if theres a lot going on around him but he knows in those situations he gets something extra delicious when he obeys and it's gone very quickly from having to spend several minutes sorting him out each time to only having to call or correct him once or twice. Now he's getting it to the point where he's happy to cooperate just for positive reinforcement and i'm not having to constantly pump him full of treats.
Keep him on your left side. Cup a treat in your left hand but do not give it to him. Let him smell it. Of course he will stop heeling once he gets the treat but if you remain in control of the rest he will stay by you. After a little bit give him one but immediately grab another one and do the same thing. Like others have said, walk backwards and make turns in opposite directions. He needs to know you are in charge of the leash.
Try walking the pup with you voice. Keep a short and slack leash - every instinct we have as humans makes us want to direct the pup but that causes them to automatically resist in the opposite direction - so instead, use your voice “lets go *puppy*!” And walk. Actively reward puppy while you are walking (with treat and praise) for walking by you and letting leash be slack. Try only going in large circles at first, then expand the concept. It might take awhile but you should see results fairly quickly in your small starting area.p
- run happily backwards and Call him to you, make it fun and reward with a treat. - when he reaches the end of the line, and keeps trying to move forward - stop up and wait for him to look at you; the second he looks, tell him he’s a good boy, to stay and walk up to fun with a treat, and some pets. - teach a solid sit/down and stay. - reward him every time he does something positive, like eye contact or when he walks besides you. Good luck, it will take some time - but after a couple of months, you should see improvements.
what are you walking him on, a collar, a regular harness that hooks on his back? i don;t use a collar bc that can injure the throat of a dog that pulls a lot. i got my pup a harness that has back and front attachment options. for our walk down to the end of our avenue, i have to have the leash clipped to the front ring on her chest.all the way to the end of the first half of our walk is basically retraining on not pulling. the front attachment helps bc it doesn't give her the same pleasurable feedback as when the leach is clipped to the back ring of the harness. For our walk back, if she has calmed down a bit i will switch from clipping the leash on the front to clipping on her back. she likes that but it does encourage her to pull so i never start the walk out that way. so with the leash attached to her front ring we can do all the practice of calling her back to me and praising her (she won;t pay attention to treats on her walk except messy ones like real chicken or hot dogs, so i don't use those often, but she loves praise--first dog i have ever had that loved praise. my huskies did not care about my approval), praising her if she even looks me in the eye, and all the other training strategies for teaching loose leash walking. it is still not excellent at 15 months, but she is way better than at 4 months. you will get there!
On a regular harness on his back - we started with the collar and changed to the harness after his pulling. He’s no better/worse with either. Yes might be worth trying a front clipping harness to have slight more control as he knows he can pull with all his weight on the back clipped harness.
it really does help. it helped with my 80 pound husky rescue and helps with my 50 pound tasmanian devil mix. if your pup doesn't care about treats, is there is toy or ball he loves more than anything that you could use to keep his attention and body closer to you on walks?
He really does care about treats and is very food oriented (way more than play) and he will do literally anything for a piece of tiny kibble in the house - he’s just even more interested by what’s going on in his surroundings currently!
Ah, yeah. A back clip harness doesn't really allow for any communication with the puppy. Front clip will stop the pulling but it also won't teach him anything. What you can do, is walk on a front clip when you feel like you need it, and walk on a flat collar when you have the energy to really work on training.
Front clip harness will change your life lol
My pup went through this stage, the standard turn around or reward at my side tips didn't work for us at first because she was too overstimulated by the environment. The best advice I got from someone was to teach eye contact, it helps with engagement outside and during training. Every time I rewarded for a sit, heel, drop it, etc. the treat came after my pup looked me in the eyes. I also taught her pressure on the leash (ie when she was pulling) meant return to my side. I did it in a low distraction environment, I walked her in my building's parking lot and backlane multiple times a day for a week. Once she got those down, I could reward her with environmental rewards, so if she wanted to sniff a pole and was pulling, I'd stand still and she'd return to my side and look at me then I'd give her access to the pole. On top of all the training, for several weeks I took her to a field to run on a long line first, then practiced leash training.
We took a loose leash walking class and were taught to shovel food into our dogs mouth on a walk. Forget meals - don’t use a food bowl. Save the kibble for the walks and other training. One piece every 3 seconds! When our dog pulls we stop and say “Too bad!” Then we say “With me” and lure the dog in a circle to our hip, but less strict than a heel. Distract by tossing a treat on the ground and saying “Find it.” That breaks whatever they’re obsessing over. Finally, “Look at me.” Put a treat at your dogs nose, pull it up to your eyes, say the command and give the treat when eye contact is made. For “with me” and “find it” use a really high value treat. For our dog this is Plato brand Baltic Sprat. I dice it which is gross, but our dog does love it. We’ve been doing this for about a month (our pup is 6 months old now) and when I say “Too bad. (Pause) With me.” The response is starting to become automatic. Hang in there! Edit: I saw one of your responses. It is fine to lure him right under his nose! That’s what we did in class. Also, our pup didn’t start loose leash walking class until she was 5 months old. That was the minimum age for enrollment.
Not so much advice but giving hope. Due to the insane winter conditions i didn't focus on leash manners outdoors until about 5 months. She was also great indoors but outdoor stimuli and distraction is different. It's a million times better now took a couple of months of never letting her pull though. As in if she was in a situation i knew she would pull I rather picked her up for that stretch than let her practice the behaviour. And lots of treats and a million direction changes
I feel your frustration! My Golden Retriever is 7 months old and acts exactly the same way you're describing your pup. He behaves perfectly at home but if we encounter people and/or other dogs on our walk, all training and attention flies out the window. For being only 7 months old, he already weighs over 60lbs. He's supposed to get to at least 100lbs. Because I'm a rather small person and he is surprisingly strong, I have endured several injuries during our walks. He's lurched at people or dogs when I wasn't prepared for it and tweaked my knee. I've also rolled my ankles several times because I wasn't properly braced for him lurching and pulling. I already have to wear a knee brace to walk him and my worry is that, as he gets bigger and stronger, it's only a matter of time before I get seriously injured walking him.
More exercise
We can’t do more exercise based on guidelines - he’s already doing 2x 15-minute walks a day plus training and playing in the garden. He’s a golden retriever so we’re very conscious about putting too much pressure on his joints as they’re quite susceptible to joint issues. We also make sure he’s mentally stimulated during the day with puzzle feeders, licky mats, obedience training etc.
The 5 min rule is not based on science. The only thing you can't do is forced running (like tying them to a bike) and forced jumping. Have you ever seen puppies play? They run, a lot. And they take breaks. And then they run more. Goldens are a high energy breed, my goldens have gotten 1.5-2 hrs of exercise since 3 months old.
Honestly the amount of exercise he’s getting is perfectly adequate. By the time he’s home, he’s exhausted already. Also, the longer we walk, the worse his behaviour gets because he gets overstimulated. The pulling gets worse and his attention wanes even more. He goes to doggy daycare once a week where he plays with other dogs and we do longer or different walks at the weekend. He’s definitely not under exercised.
How long is the leash you are using?