As foster parents for New Rattitude we sign a Foster Parent Agreement every time we get a new foster dog. One of the rules of the agreement is that foster dogs will be kept leashed at all times when out of a secure area. So we always had Tim on leash when he was our foster dog.
The truth is letting dogs go off leash in unsecured areas can have it's pitfalls if not managed in a very conscientious way. And some dogs, especially terriers with a prey drive, should never be allowed to be off leash.
Timken has gone walking with us on leash on these trails for almost 9 months (before we adopted him) so he knows this area very well. Once we adopted Tim Dave and I discussed at length what our comfort zone was to allow him some off leash time with the other dogs. We both knew he would not run off merely to be away from us because he is very bonded to us, BUT we also had no idea if the freedom of not being leashed to us would get the better of him and if he would actually stay close to us or if his curiosity and new found freedom would get him into trouble. My motherly instincts were on high alert and I agreed I felt he could handle the freedom but I wanted to make sure we worked on his recall again and again while we walked along and also to shape a "check-in" response whenever he got up in front rather than just heading out and never looking back until he was too far for our comfort zone. Tim dragging the leash behind him was my request. Tim does not always like to be touched or picked up and in an emergency I wanted to make sure I could at least step on his leash to stop him if he got spooked and bolted. Of course I would have to catch him first but I just felt the leash was some added insurance.
This training work has changed our walks a great deal. Normally Dave and I have long conversations and try to figure out the meaning of life and such when we are walking with the dogs, lol. But now our focus is on Tim, making sure we have enough treats with us, making sure we are catching every turn of his head toward us, and constantly scanning and focusing on where he is at all times and what is in the environment ahead and around us.
We have done about 5 off leash walks with Tim now and these pictures are from the second walk. He is doing great and hopefully these pics will give you an idea of the way we are working to shape Tim's check-in.
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| Tim walking ahead of us off leash... |
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| He stops... |
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| turns toward us and gets his "click" which we are using the word "yes"... |
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| Tim runs back to us and gets his treat reward. We are using high value treats as we really need him to be motivated to check in with us over being too interested in the environment where he could get too far ahead... |
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| Tim also gets rewarded for following...in fact we reward very heavily for this behavior when he is on our heels, either with an even higher value treat or with treating more frequently when he is in this position. Skip (blue harness) and Jenny (forefront) always stay on our heels, rarely do they go up front. Liza (up front) is leashed to prevent her from going too far in front as she really likes to scout and in turn Tim will follow after her and we are trying to teach him to not go too far up front for now. Although as we work with Tim and the other dogs get in on the act, even Liza is tending to stay closer to us now as not to miss out on those yummy treats and that is a win-win! |
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| This is another version, Tim back up in front... |
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| he stops and turns toward us, one of us says "yes"... |
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| he waits for us to get up to him with the treat.... This is fine with us as well, he can choose to come back to us for the treat or wait for us to catch up to him to get his treat, either way he is only going so far then "checking-in" with us before going on ahead again. We are hoping this will help Tim build some confidence by having some autonomy from us while also exibiting some impulse control at the same time. |
When we are walking we are doing this the entire time! We figure we are getting 50-100 chances per walk to get this behavior shaped depending on the length of our walk. Our treats are broken into the tiniest of pieces so we don't run out and so the dogs don't get too many calories. We also stop along the way and practice recall where Tim runs to me then gets a treat, then Dave calls him and he runs to Dave and gets a treat. All the dogs love this game! We are working on recalls with the whole pack. Even Jenny who doesn't hear anymore likes to run between us with the other dogs to get her treat :)
Tim is really doing well with this and I will get some video of where we are now so you can see him in action. I'm still not ready for him to not drag a leash behind him. I have heard it is best to do these recall and check in games throughout the life of your dog, so that is what we plan to do. Those long talks about the meaning of life will have to take place in the car to and from the trail. But it's all worth it to make sure we are training Tim to look to us when off leash.
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| Tim looking very alert and confident! |
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