Scenario:  I’m out on the path walking Mia, (some of you know Mia – beautiful, smart, excellent working dog – afraid of other dogs), we’re minding our own business and enjoying the beautiful weather when along comes the lovely, friendly, sweet, exuberant adolescent.  I’m asking Mia to stay with me and mind her manners and the puppy’s person is shouting “don’t worry, he’s friendly” as his dog lunges at the end of the leash and scares Mia into a barking fit.  I’m not loving it.

What would I like to see?  Dogs who can stay with their handlers even when there are other dogs, squirrels, cats and children around; dogs who have basic obedience commands; humans who have control and ask before letting their dog “come and say hi”.  Now let’s talk about how to achieve these aspirations!

Basic skills for the walking path are heeling, sit and stay.  (I’d add ‘come’ – but that one is for off leash parks, and we all know better than to have our dog off leash while walking on an on leash walking path.)  Heel is a skill that seems simple, but can be difficult out in the real world full of distractions.  I start every pup I work with on a harness that has a ring in on the front of the chest.  Then when baby lunges ahead of me to “get the squirrel”, she finds herself turned around and facing me.  A head collar will do the same thing, but you have to be careful not to cause neck damage – that’s why I prefer the harness.  When baby is facing me again, I can either turn the other way and reward her when she catches up to me, or I can bring her back to my side and reward her for being in the right place.  The important thing is that she does not get the reward of getting to whatever she was lunging for.  If she wants to see that person, dog, child – she needs to walk to it nicely with my permission.

Sit... does any dog not know sit?  I think it’s the first thing we all teach our pups, but now they need to be able to do a sit with distractions!  Work up to maximum distractions – don’t try to go from sit in the kitchen with no distractions to sit in front of the toddler waiving an ice cream cone around.  Look for ways to work your sit behaviour with harder and harder distractions until your dog is a sit-champion and can do the job without thinking about it anywhere you ask.

Stay – also easy, until you get out in the real world.   Again, you need to build up to the tough distractions.  I like to work a ton of distractions and build up my time to two or three minutes before I start adding any distance to my dog’s stay work.  Make sure your dog can do their stays while your friends walk their under-control dogs around before you expect them to do it around strange dogs that maybe don’t have the manners you’d like.

Now that your dog has basic “going for a nice walk” skills, you can use them when you come across distractions “out there”.   I have no problem with letting my dogs “go sniff” and enjoy just being dogs, but when I see another dog, small child, elderly person... or for that matter, any person (they might be afraid of dogs), I ask my dog to heel beside me.  If the person indicates an interest in meeting my beautifully behaved dog, I ask my dog to sit-stay for petting.  If there’s another dog that I think mine might be interested in meeting, I’ll sit-stay mine and ask the other handler for permission before I let my dog go up and sniff.  When they’ve had their greetings and I’ve exchanged pleasantries with the handler, I ask my dog to heel and we go on our way – no stress, no fuss.  No, I don’t let my dog visit with the lunging, barking, out-of-control dog.  If that poor dog’s handler asks to let mine visit, I just say “no, she’s not very friendly and she’s in training”... even for my very friendly dogs – nothing else seems to get the point across with some people.

Walking path manners are not hard to teach, but they do take some training time.  Just think though – when your dog is so nicely behaved on the path you’ll inspire others to do the same with their dogs (remember to tell them how easy it is!) and eventually Mia will be able to go for a walk without fear of being accosted and we can all enjoy our walks more!