Update on how Molly's getting on

Molly is 13 months old now and I've finally got around to properly training her whilst she is on the lead. I'm using what I would call the "stop/start" technique, if she pulls on the lead, we stop and wait for her to relax, she'll actually turn her body and look up at me when she is relaxed, I then say "slowly" and set off again. The reason I'm using "slowly" instead of "heel" or "nicely" is because we have some steps in our garden and when she was younger, I'd always say slowly when we walked down them, so she didn't pull me over (I'm useless on stairs/steps) and she seems to grasp it better than any other command. I've tried using treats to get her to walk next to me, and a toy, but she is so set on walking it doesn't seem to get her attention. I've basically said if she doesn't get any better she is having a Halti, I'm literally to the point of tears because she won't listen to me properly, however today we had a minor breakthrough, after being pulled down the village to the butchers, then pulled home again, I got pretty annoyed, dumped her back in the house and brushed my teeth whilst I calmed down. Then we set off for a proper walk, 40 minutes or so it took us, I must have stopped her about 25-30 times for the first 30 minutes or so, then the final ten minutes, walking down our hill back to our house, I only had to stop her once at the very top and the rest of the way she walked virtually right next to my side!

Finally! This is the first time I've not had sore hands or arms from her pulling, I'm hoping the same will happen tomorrow, maybe the last 15 minutes will be better instead of 10, then eventually I'll not have to stop at all!

The only thing I have noticed is, if I say "Good Girl" she starts pulling again, could it be my voice gets higher in pitch so she gets excited? I said "Clever Girl" to her a few times and she didn't start pulling... Strange dog. I managed to get her to ignore some animal tracks too, that's what the "Clever Girl" was for.
I feel a bit guilty not praising her for walking well, but when I do she just starts pulling again, it's counter productive really.
On another note, she's getting better at coming back inside from the garden when she is called, she's learning how to roll over too, finally. She's also getting better with our cat, I can tell her "No" and she'll stop mid movement and just watch the cat instead of chasing after her, she's still stealing socks, but that's to be expected when we leave them on the floor, they're obviously too tempting for her!
The next step is to get her less hyperactive when people are around.

Well done, it's always good when you start to see it all coming together!

To be honest, it doesn't matter what words you use when training as long as you always use the same word for the same action - the dog doesn't care! A friend of mine (years ago) taught his dog to sit by saying '*' and to lay down by saying 'belly'.

Great to hear, and sounds`as though Molly has come on leaps and bounds in the space of a day!

They really do learn quick and its just patience and reitterating everything! As long as the entire family work together things will be fine. Nice one and all fronts

Caryll wrote:Well done, it's always good when you start to see it all coming together!

To be honest, it doesn't matter what words you use when training as long as you always use the same word for the same action - the dog doesn't care! A friend of mine (years ago) taught his dog to sit by saying '*' and to lay down by saying 'belly'.

Aye, Leaim's old dog used to respond to "Eeyore" in place of "heel"

janey wrote:Great to hear, and sounds`as though Molly has come on leaps and bounds in the space of a day!

They really do learn quick and its just patience and reitterating everything! As long as the entire family work together things will be fine. Nice one and all fronts

Getting the entire family to work together is the problem, but so long as she's good with me out on walks, I'm not really too bothered because only me and Leaim walk her and she walks reasonably well with him any way.

Its all positive which is great

Wow Molly does the same as Blue. He can walk next to me for 1 min as soon as I say good boy he darts like the person before me has taught him to pull a cart on the command.
I do the same stop start method. Does Molly walk backwards really quickly when you stop?
Thinking of teaching him to moonwalk back so I don't get so angry after stopping for the 2000 time and thinking ffs learn to walk slow

BlueStaffBlue wrote:Wow Molly does the same as Blue. He can walk next to me for 1 min as soon as I say good boy he darts like the person before me has taught him to pull a cart on the command.
I do the same stop start method. Does Molly walk backwards really quickly when you stop?
Thinking of teaching him to moonwalk back so I don't get so angry after stopping for the 2000 time and thinking ffs learn to walk slow

lol thankfully she doesn't walk backwards, she just spins around in a circle when she's finally relaxed.
I'm glad it's not just Molly that gets over excited over a simple "Good girl"
We're going to teach her how to pull when she's about 18 month, I don't think we're going to have any problems, she loves pulling and doesn't need any encouragement!

The thing I tried with Dempsey was as soon as he started to pull I'd turn around & walk the other way. As soon as the lead tightened (and you've got to get your timing right) I'd give a quick tug & say "Dempsey, c'm on" (I don't use 'heal') and just carry on walking. After about the 10th time (bull terriers, being a little dense, take a bit longer to cotton on) he started watching me for the about turn, and began to walk quite nicely.

I don't need him to walk with his head wrapped around my leg like an Obedience Champion, just to walk without yanking my arm out of its socket!

Caryll wrote:The thing I tried with Dempsey was as soon as he started to pull I'd turn around & walk the other way. As soon as the lead tightened (and you've got to get your timing right) I'd give a quick tug & say "Dempsey, c'm on" (I don't use 'heal') and just carry on walking. After about the 10th time (bull terriers, being a little dense, take a bit longer to cotton on) he started watching me for the about turn, and began to walk quite nicely.

I don't need him to walk with his head wrapped around my leg like an Obedience Champion, just to walk without yanking my arm out of its socket!

I've tried that, it doesn't really work, but stop starting seems to.
As you said, I don't want him to walk bang next to me, just nice enough so my arm is still in one piece!

I also tried that too Caryll. I found Blue would start to walk 5 steps ahead and watch fr me to turn and as soon as I turned he would fly past me and be 5 steps ahead in the other direction. So I turn again and he flys past again.............hmmm 40 mins later he still isn't fipping board of running past me to get in the lead lol So I gave up on that one

I found with my 2 trying to talk to them when ive given them a command confuses them. Although your just trying to tell them there good and thats cause your so proud of them but they dont need reasurance so say nothing see how you go and give your praises as you get home.

BlueStaffBlue wrote:I also tried that too Caryll. I found Blue would start to walk 5 steps ahead and watch fr me to turn and as soon as I turned he would fly past me and be 5 steps ahead in the other direction. So I turn again and he flys past again.............hmmm 40 mins later he still isn't fipping board of running past me to get in the lead lol So I gave up on that one

That's cause he's got 3 times more brain than Dempsey!