New Tricks: Encouraging Your Dog’s Proactivity - a podcast by Ty Brown

Today I’d like to share a phrase that I use quite a lot with my clients: “The more proactive your dog is in fixing their mistake, the sooner they won’t make that mistake.”

Let me bring in an example to illustrate this concept: leash pulling. We work on this problem a lot with clients, because nearly every dog I meet for the first time is pulling on his leash. We teach a method called “the Crazy Man Method.” When we’re walking and the dog moves too far ahead, I do a 180-degree turn and give a little tug on the leash. If the dog goes right, I go left. If the dog goes left, I go right. If the dog goes forward, I go backward. After a while, the dog realizes “I’ve got to watch out for this guy, he’s crazy! If I go this way, he goes that way. He’s nuts!” Soon he realizes that if he stays put, then he can pay attention.

The Crazy Man Method is great, and it gets most dogs eighty percent of the way to obedience. But there are some dogs who still nudge forward a little bit as they’re walking, even after doing this method for a few weeks. In these cases, I start teaching something called the Easy Command: as the dog moves forward, I pause and use the leash to give some correction and prompt the dog to physically (and mentally) turn around, and then I wait for the dog to get back to my side. Then we go on our way.

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