3. 5 Tips for Walking Your Reactive Dog

Today, we're going to discuss 5 tips for walking your reactive dog. If you're listening to this podcast, you are most likely a reactive dog owner. Likely, your whole goal in listening to this podcast is to gain more tips and knowledge so that you can start living a more active life with your dog. Of course, that means you have to get out, and you have to walk your dog. I know firsthand that walking a reactive dog can be challenging and stressful. You always have to be scanning the horizon to be on the lookout for triggers. Then, heaven forbid, if your dog does react, you start worrying about what other people are thinking about you, and you start worrying that they're judging you. So I'm going to provide 5 tips that I think are entirely necessary and will help you and walking your reactive dog.

TIP #1Stop worrying about what other people think about you.

You're already doing the right thing by getting out with your dog and trying your best to train him so that he's not reacting, and that is all that matters. Don't let other people change that for you. Just keep on doing what you know is right and doing right by your dog. Don't let anybody else's opinions or judgments or anything else affect you, because you know what's best for your dog and you're working on it. So keep up the good work. And just let everybody else's opinions just slide right off.

TIP #2 Teach your dog an emergency U-turn. TIP #3 Always carry high value treats with you.

You also need to keep in mind that what is high value to one dog may not be high value to another. So you need to experiment and you need to find what your dog considers to be high value. If you haven't found that out already, here are some things that I would recommend experimenting with: cheddar cheese, pepperoni, liverwurst, meatballs, boiled chicken or beef, hot dogs, or even lunchmeat. You could even use spray cheese peanut butter on a stick or even get one of those refillable camping tubes and fill it with a canned food and water mixture. The takeaway here is just to find something that your dog finds absolutely irresistible.

Tip #4 Make sure that your dog is wearing good gear.

I personally recommend walking your dog on a harness with the leash attached to either the back clip or the front clip. There isn't any equipment on the market that will fix a pulling issue. If your dog pulls, you have to spend the time teaching loose leash walking. It's not the most fun thing to teach, but it's going to be something that you will be grateful for every single time you pick up your dog's leash to take him on a walk.

TIP #5 Teach your dog a focused heel that relies on environmental cues only.

You're going to teach your dog to perform this heel position on his own in response to an environmental cue, with no prompting or cues coming straight from you.

So those are your five tips for walking a reactive dog! I hope that you guys get some ideas from these tips, and maybe feel a little bit inspired to go out and try these with your dog. I hope that it just gets you in the mindset that it's okay to take your reactive dog outside and be more active with him. It's always a couple of steps forward and a couple of steps backward. And that's fine, you're going to keep kind of doing that dance for a while. Again, you're doing what's best for you and your dog. Your dog does not deserve to be locked up inside all the time because he may or may not react to something outside. You're doing what's right for your dog. So keep up the good work. And I hope that these tips help you. I hope you feel more confident getting out in the trail with your dog. So until next time, I'll talk to you later.

LINKS MENTIONED FOR LOOSE LEASH WALKING:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45lk4_tud9Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP3l9ouRnl8

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