Loose lead training and jumping

[Lagattolove]

6 month old pup who is doing ok with loose lead training but in the last few days has started to jump at me for the treats I’m holding. I’m standing stone still until he stops and stands at my side but he doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Any advice how to stop?

Are you holding the treats in your hand on the side you want your dog to loose lead on?

Where are you holding the treats while he walks along? They need to be as close to his nose as possible so he stays in the loose lead position.

My dog trainer suggested a wooden spoon with a bit of peanut butter on - easy to hold at his nose height!

Your dog will do what he thinks is the thing that releases the treat. He gets two 'hits' of reward when getting a treat

• the first, at the precise moment he realises a treat is a possibility (note for the nerds: it's possible this reward is even stronger than actually getting the treat, when used in intermittent reward schedules)


• the second, at the moment the treat reaches his mouth

So, if you use treats to reward for a specific body position then try, as hard as possible, to only ever start to offer the treat (i.e. move your hand) when he is in the position you want and offer it in a way he must still be in that same position at the point he gets the treat.

e.g. if you want loose lead then make sure you are not moving to get the treat too early or moving in a way that the dog is offered or gets the treat when reaching up. If he has to stretch his head upwards to get the treat then he will likely extend that behaviour over time to jumping up.

If he is struggling with this then fill your hand with a few treats and start again by luring him into the right position and staying there, for a while.

All that said, 6 months is still pretty young and this tends to be the kind of thing that takes a good few months to tackle so I wouldn't worry yet that it doesn't appear to be getting better, it's still very soon to be expecting any kind of improvement, really.