“When you are ready to start walking with your dog it’s really important to use the right training equipment. We do not use / recommend any methods that may cause pain to your dog. The use of prong collars, choke chains and half check choke collars are prohibited.

Investing in a good fitting harness and a double clip lead is essential. When you walk your dog on a flat collar or from the neck area you put pressure on the spine. This can in turn cause pain.

Gone are the days when you are told to walk your dog on your left-hand side and “check” them into place, walking along side you. On only a slip lead! To start with your dog has 4 legs you have 2. They will naturally walk a couple of paces in front. You don’t want them motoring ahead but a short distance with a loose lead is completely acceptable.

Start by practicing in the garden. Walking round trying to keep the lead as loose as possible. You should walk on both sides of your dogs’ body. If you find that your dog is pulling a lot you can set up some groundwork for them to go to (see below picture) this will put natural pauses into your practice and encourage your dog to sniff.

Once you have mastered this in the garden it’s time to take it out to the local park. Make sure, you take something of high value with you to reward. Squeezy Cheese is great for this as they come back and lick the cheese.

 The idea is you start to walk and you recall your dog every few steps, when they turn to take the treat or lick the cheese say good or yes. As time goes on, mix this up by using a variety of foods including your dogs’ own kibble.  *Vegan options are cooked sweet potatoes and carrots.

This will then become more natural and you will watch for you dog to turn their head back to you. Capture that moment with a good / yes. You can then start to add a walk on command for them to go back on their walk. Remember you are rewarding a natural behaviour.

If you find that your dog is looking at everything else around them other than you. You can make a noise, click or whistle to grab their attention. Then reward.

Training is all about mixing things up to keep your dogs’ attention. Instead of hand feeding the treat / kibble place them on the floor. This encourages the nose to the floor.

The idea is that we want to practice that lose lead walking so if your dog starts to pull, slow yourself down. Wait for a moment, place some treats on the floor and then start again with the walking process. If you have ten minutes to practice, don’t worry about how far you go, its about the quality of the walk not the quantity.

Once you start going to the park you should clip a longline on to your dogs’ harness. Start the process again, reward looking back at you. This is your start point for recall training.

Let your dog go a few metres in front then recall back and reward. Keep practicing. There is no set time to move on to the next stage Recall. Each dog will do this in their own time and some dogs have too much of a chase drive or desire to wander to ever get 100% off lead. This is not a reflection on your training ability this is just a characteristic/ personality trait of your dog.

The most important thing is that you keep your dog safe and if you don’t have 100% recall then keep your dog on a longline.” Donna.