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Elka has been a royal pain in the ass to train on leash ever since I got her. I’ve tried a wide variety of training methods (though we haven’t worked consistently on “silky leash” yet) and she’s a determined puller. During all of our walks I keep an eye on her praying for her to just look at me, once, while in motion.
Now, Elka isn’t a dragger. If I stop - she’ll stop. But it’s still not a pleasant walking experience.
Today, I brought a bait bag and a ton of tasty treats with us. As normal, I stopped every time there was pressure on the leash. Milton stayed 90% at my side so got a ton of treats. I tried something new today, instead of moving forward when Elka released the pressure, I waited for her to look at me. Then I tripled up the reinforcement. She got hearty praise, a treat, and we moved forward.
Two blocks away from home, I’d given up on the training because it had suddenly started raining out. I was giving them a ton of treats simply to keep them at my side and pressure of the leash. I was pulling a new treat out of the bag and not yet ready and all of a sudden, Elka looked back at me while walking and brought herself to my side. She got a huge treat jackpot and we kept walking. She then started to “check in” every few seconds, looking back at me and correcting herself.
Now, this was just one walk, it’s seemed we had breakthroughs before. But this one holds a lot of promise.
On the plus side, Elka’s stubborn-ness on leash has given me a lot of training knowledge. That’s a good thing, right?
-Lisa, on November 7, 2010 at 2:02 pm