From pulling on the lead to a slack one in six days

What you’re watching

By the time he reached the door he was already leaning into the lead, and the door was still shut. That was the bit that stood out. What they had got in touch about was the pulling, and the way he went off at things on walks.

The lead coming out was where it started, well before anyone had opened anything. I left the pulling alone that first day and we went and stood at the door.

Three of these clips are from that session. The fourth his owner filmed six days later and sent over.

The door work

He learns at the door that I decide when it opens. It opens when he’s sat and quiet. If he gets up, it shuts, and we wait, and it opens again when he’s sat and quiet. I keep quiet through all of it and keep my hands to myself. He has to work out for himself which of his two choices makes the door open, and once he has, he stops bothering with the other one.

He sat there a good while with the door open and the garden right in front of him. You can see him weighing it up.

Then his owner took the lead and did the same thing while I stood back, which is the clip that matters. I’m only there for the session. They open that door every day, and if they let him barge through it once, the whole thing comes undone.

Six days on

The last clip his owner filmed on their own. The lead is slack and he is trotting along by the knee, looking at hedges like a normal dog.

The reactivity is still there, and that’s what we work on next. We couldn’t have started on it before this, because you can’t teach a dog anything about what is in front of him while he is that wound up. Now that he leaves the house with some sense in him, we can get on with it.