06/17/2026
A good heel starts in familiar places!
When working leash skills, I find that often people are asking too much too fast.
There is so much that goes into walking nicely on leash, like being calm in an environment, giving the handler focus in distracting places, and understanding leash communication.
Too often, dogs are put on a leash and expected to be fine - and even more often, we aren't rewarding enough when they do good things.
I don't have a magic trick for loose leash walking - what I do have is a toolbelt that gives a lot of options to try to see what clicks with your dog.
For some, thats a click/treat when they walk with the leash loose.
For others, it's rewarding with sniffing as long as they don't pull to get there.
When I'm working leash skills, we're working a bunch of other skills, too, and figuring out how your dog learns best.
