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Thursday, January 7, 2010

Leash Training a Puppy Ain't Easy - Try These Tips to Prevent Losing Your Patience

Do You Think You Can Easily Leash Train This Bundle of Joy?




Trying to get a wriggling, energetic puppy to walk nicely on a leash can be a tiresome activity. The following article contains many tips to make leash training a puppy a bit more pleasurable.

Leash Training a Puppy Without Losing Your Patience

Read the headline again - Leash Training A Puppy Without Losing Your Patience - is it possible?

Stop The Pulling
It is probable that you can stop your pup from pulling and get him to walk along side of you.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to walk your puppy around the block without feeling like your arms are going to fall off?

Make Sure You Have The Time
A caution - leash training a puppy requires focused time, but it will be spread over several weeks. The payoff is worth the effort. If you cannot allocate time to train 10-15 minutes a day, don't even try it.

A Few Words Of Wisdom
- The objective - get the puppy to focus on you, the trainer, and your movements.
- Reward positive behavior, ignore negative behavior.
- At first, the surroundings should have minimal distractions.
- The training works best when the puppy is hungry.
- In the beginning, train for short time periods. As the pup improves, increase the training time, but stop when the dog gets tired.

Tips For Leash Training A Puppy
1. Required items:
- A Puppy
- A leash, not retractable
- A collar, body harness, or Gentle Leader
- Treats
- A place to leash train

2. Get the pup to sit at your side.

3. Start walking, and as soon as the puppy pulls, STOP. When the dog looks at you, lure him back to your side, and start walking again. Reward positive behavior ONLY; for example, the puppy's walking by your side looking right at you.

Step 3 is the point requiring the most patience, especially with a young, wiggly, energetic puppy. You can be stuck in this step for days; not to worry, eventually the correct behavior will dominate.

Last Step
4. Once you get the pup to walk by your side in a straight line for more than 10 steps, you can change direction randomly. This will encourage the pup to pay attention to YOU.

More Leash Training Tips
Do you need a proven method to leash train a puppy?

Address These Common Puppy Training Problems NOW!
If your puppy displays any of these behaviors: biting, jumping up on people, food guarding, and/or is housebreaking-challenged, it's time to get professional help from expert dog trainers at Secrets to Dog Training.

Train your puppy correctly now. Don't let it turn into a bigger problem.