Reinforcing loose lead walking in fields

[Aria20]

My spaniel is about to turn 1. Her loose lead walking is pretty good on pavements but as soon as we approach a field or woods or anywhere she could be let offlead she gets excited and starts pulling. We do the stop and not walking on until she is back in position but if walking with the whole family it's much harder as everyone can't keep stopping/starting constantly and some places eg national trust or onlead only so it spoils the walk having to constantly do this.

I know I need to do a lot more work on this because obviously she has to be onlead in certain places and I'd like a more enjoyable experience. We have a perfect fit harness and use double ended lead which helps to a degree. I know she can walk nicely as she does it in other situations.

How is it best to train nice lead walking in woods/fields? Is it best to let her have a good offlead run first to tire her out and then maybe she'll walk nicely as no need to pull or is this just going to backfire that she'll continue to pull until she gets an offlead run first? Should I do a few laps of the field training nice lead walking first and then let her off to run around? Any other suggestions?

Be realistic and make it as easy as possible for all of you.

If I am in an area that my dog can not walk loose lead I will either not got there (for the moment) or let them off lead (if safe to do so)

In the fields I would let her off lead lead and then for a very very short section to start, with loose lead walk after her initial excitment has calmed down. I would release her back into the envirnoment she loves as her reinforcement.

So to start with it may literally be two steps off lead and then huge praise and "go play" or release command.

Very very soon your dog will understand loose lead walking gets me the freedom I want (good old Premack principle ).

Gradually and do not rush it your dog will be able to increase the distance that they can do loose lead walking easily.

I would also work in a inbetween type space, so pavements are good , is there a pavement walk with woods on one side, or a pavement walk through a quiet park etc? Again build up the length of time that you expect your dog to loose lead walk. Up rewards in harder criteria for them.

Aso at home using some of your dogs daily food allowance walk with your dog at your side constantly feeding them treats. Do not use a lead. The more you do this the more your dog will be happy in the loose lead position, there is no nagging from you just pleasure and reward for being in the loose lead position.

Over time you can increase the gaps between the treats until you can walk several steps without the need to reward.

If you do this enough (and I would recommend twice a day and use half of your dogs feed allowance) for several weeks and you will see a huge difference in your lead walking out and about.

When your dog is happy with this position you can also encourage this position off lead for several steps whilst out and about so in the field etc (when your dog is ready for this stage)

@PollyRoulllson she will happily loose lead walk without treats on pavement it's literally just on the approach to the field she starts pulling or places where she has to be onlead but she'd rather be offlead so think national trust property with deer so onlead is required and also in fields where part of the route is across golf courses so she can be off lead for part but then back on lead. She can actually walk to heel offlead if I have treats or a ball in my pocket but she wouldn't be reliable enough to do this if other dogs were close by offlead playing as she'd want to join them!

I will continue to work on it more. I wish I could use food allowance but my god she's so blooming fussy if I tried to just give her kibble she'd turn her nose right up... have a job getting her to eat it even mixed with sardines or wet food at the best of times but that's another thread lol!

Ok so as said, if she can not walk well in an area avoid that area until you are able to improve her loose lead walking.

She must eat at some point so use her food allowance at her mealtimes and indoors in a non distracting environment. If you only walk a few steps indoors off lead it will make a huge difference.

Dogs are contra free loaders which mean they choose to eat food that requires effort to get it so in the case of dogs they would rather work for their food. You may find the kibble becomes more exciting when working for it

If she will walk well on lead with a ball use that.

The more she walks well on lead the more it will become default behaviour. So in distracting environments use the ball and reward with ball at the end of the short loose lead session

Thanks @PollyRoulllson I will use the ball tomorrow and do some more practice in the field. I swear she behaves worse when my husband and kids are with us... I bet she'll walk perfectly tomorrow when it's just me and her but if we went to the same place at the weekend as a family she will be a terror and DH will not believe she does it when it's just me lol! She always chooses family walks to play up/show off!

It feels a cop out, but we basically make sure most of our walks are either on lead in environments she can cope with or places where we can mostly be off lead/on a long lead. We work on short stints in more exciting environments with the hope that'll get easier with practice. I avoid walking with others as it's too easy to let them practice the pulling behaviour because you don't want to make everyone stop every 5 paces.

@tizwozliz yes that's the problem when walking with the whole family! Do you find the long line encourages pulling? I hate the long line but perhaps I should get it back out.

3 D's . Once a dog learns a behaviour add in distance distraction and duration. It takes a while to get this in loose lead walking but it will happen.

So I guess she will be better with you (obviously because you are a better trainer ) but also there are less distractions. As soon as the family come along the walk is more animated, people moving around, noise a bit higher and exciting.

I would use a normal but longish lead for loose lead walking. It needs to be long enough to have a loose loop in it when walking. Smiley lead. Too short a lead and it will be tight and the dog will pull more.

I like that 3 Ds @PollyRoulllson I will remember that! Yes perhaps I expect too much from her on family walks. She's not too bad I suppose.... I have seen far worse offenders pulling their owners around lol thankfully she's only 12kg but still can be strong if determined to chase a squirrel!!

Our spaniel/terrier cross just can't cope with being on lead in fields, it drives him absolutely wild. He's only 2 so I'm hoping he'll calm down eventually. He's getting better along country lanes. This suits us both as I don't get dragged through the mud and he gets plenty of sniffs along the hedge row. Canals are another good one, he understands he's on a path so walks reasonably nicely but can sniff along the canal banks.

Gosh she's been a nightmare last few walks, worse than usual like something in her has flipped! I tried using ball to get her to walk nicely beside me something that has worked before but no not anymore she was jumping up at it/me trying to steal it.
And as it's half term it's me and 3 kids every day for the walks so I'm basically writing this week off....

She has her kennel club good citizen bronze and silver awards so she can walk nicely and recall etc but I don't know is 1 still classed as "teenage" phase? We had teenage behaviour 8-10 months then she was really good again and I thought we were past it...I guess not?! We will be going back to training after she's been spayed and recovered in a couple of weeks!

I feel your pain @Aria20. My pup (8 months old) walks brilliantly on the lead on pavements. But in a more exciting environment he seems to lose that ability completely. I think he genuinely forgets he is on the lead and tries to run toward any interesting sight or sound or smell! I don't have any brilliant advice, alas. It's one of those things that needs repetition and practice, I guess. Sympathy and solidarity to you!

We have the exact same issue. The only thing that works is cubes of liver or roast chicken every couple of paces. He knows full well how to walk to heel, he just won’t do it unless the reward is good enough, which I suppose is fair enough. It is bloody expensive though.