Neil Sattin.com

Please note, all my dog training articles are now being published at naturaldogblog.com. 

One of the most common questions I’m asked as a dog trainer is “how do I control my dog when they’re off leash?”  Well, if you’re ASKING the question you should know that the answer is obvious – you can’t!  At least you won’t be able to until you’ve done a lot more work with your dog.  But you should also know that it’s perfectly NORMAL to have a dog that wants to run to the state line as soon as they’ve been let off their leash.  The “perfectly attentive” dog, a dog who automatically stares intently at their master wondering what to do next and always comes when called (without any incentive except their master’s love), represents a very SMALL percentage of all the dogs in the world.  Your dog CAN become reliable off-lead, through the proper training.  Step number one, however, is buying and USING a very, very, very long training lead.

For the most part, everyone is striving to get to the point where their dog listens, consistently, when they’re not at the end of a 6-foot leash.  In many training books (and classes), it’s not always clear how you transition from all the on-lead work that you’ve done to the off-lead work.  Also, there are many situations where you want your dog to be able to run freely (like when you’re playing fetch in the yard, or when you’re going for a walk in the woods), and the leash doesn’t seem practical in these situations.  Well, hopefully what I’m about to say will change all that.

Whenever I train with a dog (and ALL of my interactions with a dog are training – even walks and playtime), I use an ultra-long, ultra-visible, ultra-wear-resistant training lead.  These leads are 50 feet long, made of nylon webbing, and are bright hunter orange (which has an added benefit in the Maine woods during hunting season).  They’re also very manageable – they don’t retain as much moisture as a cotton lead, and they don’t cause rope-burn like a long piece of rope.

Generally I can just let the leash trail behind the dog on the ground.  In other words, I don’t even hold it (especially during training and play-time).  After you’ve gotten used to using such a long lead, you’ll see that the length actually gives you quite a bit of time to react if your dog decides that they’re going to take off.  However, you can spend most of your time and energy focusing on the interaction that you’re having with your dog and not worrying about leash management.

Here are some more benefits:

1. I actually teach a dog to sit, laydown, stay, heel, and come without there being any leash contact between the two of us.  What this means is that there is NO transition when the dog is off-lead, because they LEARNED all of the behaviors in an environment that simulated being off-lead (the long lead trailing behind them on the ground).  The leash is there for the techniques that REQUIRE a leash and the occasional emergency (dog decides that a passing squirrel is more interesting than you).
2. Using a long lead gives you a method of controlling your dog when they are at a distance away from you.  For instance, you’re playing fetch at the local park, and it’s time to go.  All you have to do is pick up your end of the lead, and coil it as you walk towards your dog (or you can use it to encourage your dog to come with you as you walk AWAY from your dog, coiling the lead as they approach).  No more negotiations necessary (how many times have you heard the “c’mon spikesy.  c’mon.  No really, it’s time to go now.  C’mon spikesy”?).
3. If your local animal control officers are lenient (or at least have a sense of humor), then you can honor the spirit of your local leash laws while still having the freedom to let your dog run/play fetch at city parks.  You have to always hang on to one end of the leash, though.  I actually do this here in Portland.  Let’s face it, having your dog on lead DOES help you be a more responsible dog owner, especially in urban environments.
4. You set an example for people who have no control over their dogs, and whose dogs really SHOULD be on-lead (because they’re aggressive, for instance).  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been accosted where the situation would have been totally avoidable if the dog had been on lead.
5. A long lead is way easier to manage (and grab, when necessary), than one of those retractable leads.  Plus there are no cheap plastic parts to break when they get dragged along the trail.
6. You can relax with your dog, knowing that they have the freedom to move, and knowing that YOU have control over them at all times.

Using a long lead is a GREAT alternative to Invisible Fence when you’re working with your dog in your own yard.  You recall that we are actually trying to engage our dogs in their energized moments, right?  Well, I’ve noticed that dogs tend to be quite inhibited when I’ve worked with them in invisible-fence-lined yards.  At this point, if a dog has invisible fence I ALWAYS take them to a different location for training so they can be themselves instead of worrying about if they’re going to get zapped when they run off to chase the ball. 

A few things to bear in mind:

1. Use a flat collar, unless you’re doing a specific training exercise that requires a different kind of collar.
2. Work on your leash management skills.  Practice holding onto one end of the lead when you walk with your dog through the woods or a park, letting the lead out when your dog wants to run, and then coiling it up, as you walk, when there’s less distance between you and your dog.
3. Pay attention to what’s going on.  Seriously, pay attention.  You don’t want to be pulled off your feet because you were engrossed in conversation with a friend while your dog was taking off in another direction.
4. NEVER try to stop your dog short from a full run at the end of the leash.  ALWAYS move a little bit in the same direction that your dog is going so that you can GRADUALLY slow them to a stop.  Stopping your dog short could cause serious injury (or worse) to your dog, so go easy on them.
5. Only use the leash when you are there to supervise.  In other words, don’t use it to tie your dog out to a tree somewhere.

While I haven’t exactly gotten my on-line store up and running (working on it), I DO sell these leads to my clients.  They’re 50 foot long, and made with 1″ wide hunter-orange nylon with a chrome swivel clip – very durable.  If you’re interested, I can ship one directly to your door (priority mail) for $35.00.  Just drop me a line at neil at neilsattin dot com, and we’ll figure out the details.  Stay tuned for quick-and-easy paypal!

So the key to teaching your dog what to do when they’re off leash is to simulate, as much as possible, the feeling of being off leash when you’re training them.  The best way to do that is to use a really, really, really long lead – and let it just trail behind your dog as you work with them.  I’ve found that fifty feet is really the perfect length, giving your dog plenty of room to maneuver while not becoming too unbearably difficult to manage – but feel free to experiment, of course.  Just make sure you experiment!  In the future, when people ask you how you got your dog to be so well-behaved off leash, you can tell them your secret. 

Thanks again for stopping by, and let me know if you have any questions/observations, either through the comments section  or by e-mailing me ( neil at neilsattin dot com). 

Stay tuned for an upcoming article on “pushing”, the most fundamental technique in natural dog training.

Please note, all my dog training articles are now being published at naturaldogblog.com. 

We’ve talked about how our dogs are primarily responding to the emotional energy in the world around them.  We’ve also addressed how a dog needs to be relaxed in order to deal with this energy in a healthy manner (by letting it flow through them), since a physically tense dog will experience excess energy as a building tension that ultimately must be released (typically in some sort of “dysfunctional” behavior).  This article is going to give you some quick tips on helping your dog relax.

The two most important things for you are:
1.  Develop your ability to sense what’s going on with your dog. 

In any given situation, is your dog getting more relaxed, or more tense?  Do you see muscles trembling?  Hair standing on end?  Tail quivering?  Body wiggling out of control? Spinning around in circles, or manic jumping?  Anxious panting?  Primarily visual interaction with the world (staring intently)?  Shallow breathing?  Seeming to be head-oriented, instead of body-oriented?  These are all signs of tension, to varying degrees of escalation.  Your goal should be to spot warning signs early and nip them in the bud by taking steps to calm the situation. As soon as the tension in your dog has escalated along with the flow of stimulation, you can’t expect your dog to listen to you, and it becomes your job to bring them back down to earth before worrying about whether or not they’re doing what you ask.

A relaxed dog might have an intensity about them, but it will be a calm, focused intensity, not a building-to-a-flipout kind of intensity.  Muscles will be supple, and the dog will be more interested in your contact with their body.  A relaxed dog tends to sniff the environment (instead of relying primarily on sight), and will be able to hear you despite whatever else is going on in the world around them.  Breathing will be regular, and moments of stillness will be balanced with moments of fluid motion.

2.  Develop a state of calm, centered relaxation within yourself.

Our dogs are picking up the emotional energy of the world around them, so who do you think is the major source of that energy?  That’s right, it’s you!  Before you pick apart how your dog is reacting in a given situation, examine your own responses.  Are you getting tense in a particular part of your body?  Are you getting anxious, trying to figure out what to do?  Is your breathing rapid and/or shallow?  Does your voice get all quick and animated, high pitched?  Is the intensity of your interaction building, like by tightening up on the leash, or through verbal escalation?  Just like you can’t expect your dog to respond correctly when they are in their own fight-or-flight mode, you also can’t expect to be capable of asking for the “right” things until you’ve managed to chill yourself out.

Focus on your breathing.  Take time to just notice what’s going on within yourself.  Don’t try to correct it, just notice it, and allow it to be.  Accept yourself in your tense state, and recognize your own emotional response to the current environment.  Feel your rootedness to the ground, through the weight of your body and the place where your feet are making contact with the earth.  Take a drink of water.  Shake it out.  Let it go.  There, feeling better?

OK, those are the basics.  Now for some quick nitty-gritty techniques:
1.  Play with your dog outside.  Try to keep all indoor activity to a minimum.  Help your dog work on their “inside voice” vs. their “outside voice”.

Here’s the reason:  our dogs, who were designed to live outdoors, find interior spaces to be quite a bit more stressful, especially as stimulation intensifies.  Think about it this way – imagine that you have your stereo on in your living room.  You turn the volume up to 6..7..8 – it’s getting pretty loud, isn’t it?  Almost painfully so.  However, you could take your stereo outside, at that same level, and it would be much easier to take.  In fact, you could probably even turn the volume up without it hurting you.  Well, now turn that stereo (sound energy) into play/animated action (emotional energy).  With the emotional energy amplified by the walls/floors/ceilings, there’s almost no way for a dog to stay relaxed in that environment, which means that they will be storing up stress in their internal battery.  That stress needs to come out eventually – and until YOU become the moose in your dog’s life that stress will come out in ways that are often not desirable.  So…do the play and training, the bulk of your “active” interaction, outside.

2.  When you touch your dog, use long, smooth, massaging strokes along the back and sides, the chest, and neck.  Keep your touch slow and deliberate, and ever so gradually work your way up to deeper and deeper penetration into the muscle fiber.  You are like your dog’s massage therapist – working on the physical tension that is the main culprit in dysfunctional behavior.  Now, what if you went for a massage, and your massage therapist gave you brisk pats instead of a body rub?  It’d have a stimulating effect instead of a relaxing one.  Bear that in mind as you massage your dog.  Ask yourself if that touch is relaxing or stimulating – and focus on the relaxing techniques.

3.  Use treats.  When a dog eats, it releases all sorts of beneficial neuro-chemicals into the bloodstream.  Treats will also help you get your dog’s attention when a situation is getting too intense.  You can use the treats to redirect your dog away from whatever is causing the stress, and then use other techniques to deepen the relaxation.

4.  Run it out.  Fluid motion is a great reliever of stress, and exercise also produces those beneficial neuro-chemicals that I just mentioned.  Even walking will help relieve some of the tension in a given situation.  Just remember to walk/run AWAY from the source of stress, not towards it!  If you need to, use treats to lure your dog into the exercise, but soon the good feeling of the motion will become an enticer all its own.

5.  Verbal praise.  It’s your tone that matters more than your words, so keep your tone even, medium pitched, and relaxed.  Repeat “good dog, good dog” over and over (or whatever other POSITIVE phrases you’d like to use).  As with everything else, pay attention to the effect your voice is having on your dog.  If it’s helping to relax them keep it up, if it’s not helping then use one of the other techniques.

6.  Play, especially tug-of-war.  You can play tug of war with your dog while they’re on lead.  It’s helpful to carry a prized tug toy around with you – keep it hidden from your dog, but ready to pull out when needed.  Recall that making prey (and biting) is THE chief way that a dog can get relief from their stress…so take out the tug toy, encourage them to bite down, tug a bit, let them win (yes, don’t forget to let them win!), and then let them carry the toy around as you walk/jog out some of that tension.  Pull on the toy some more.  Turn the whole tug/dog wins/verbal praise/jog into a game of its own.

7.  Finally – just a reminder – work on your OWN relaxation.  Take your time, and as you practice all of these relaxation techniques with your dog, trust that you’re getting somewhere.  Most of the time, the effects are immediate, but complete change is rarely instantaneous.  Be patient with your dog, and yourself.

Thanks again for stopping by, and let me know, either through the comments or e-mailing me (neil at neilsattin dot com), if you have any questions or suggestions for new articles.

Preview of what’s coming soon:  how to introduce your dog to another dog, using a LONG lead, and, at a reader’s request, we’ll be discussing how to feed your dog – in particular talking about raw food diets.

Keep breathing!