Loose-leash walking

Your dog goes wherever the leash allows, as long as it stays slack — not the tight leg position of “Heel”, but the ordinary everyday walk.

🐾🐾🐾 · ~21 days · 10 min/session

Learn first: Name recognition

Step-by-step

1. Sort out the kit before the dog

   Fit a harness with a front clip and a two-metre leash — not a retractable one. A retractable leash teaches your dog that pulling makes the line longer, which means pulling works. Hold the leash in both hands close to your body and never wrap it around your wrist.

   💡 A front-clip harness isn’t a fix on its own — it just buys you time while you train.

2. Make the slack leash noticeable

   In a hallway or the yard, with no distractions, set off slowly and deliver a treat beside your leg every two or three steps while the leash hangs in a U shape. You’re not asking for a position, only for slack in the line. The reward has to arrive before your dog starts pulling, not after.

3. Stop every time the leash tightens

   The instant the leash goes tight, stop dead and say nothing. Don’t pull back — stand still until your dog slackens the line themselves, turns or steps towards you, and only then say “Yes!” and walk on. The rule is simple: a tight leash stops the walk, a loose one keeps it going.

   💡 The first walks under this rule are painful — twenty metres in ten minutes is normal. Set off earlier and bring patience.

4. Turn around instead of waiting

   If stopping isn’t enough, calmly turn a hundred and eighty degrees when the leash tightens and walk the other way without yanking — the leash simply follows you. Reward your dog when they catch up beside you. Now the interesting thing ahead moves away when they pull and comes closer when the leash is loose.

5. Give sniffing a cue of its own

   The walk belongs to your dog, and sniffing is the whole point of it — ban it and the pulling is back the next day. Pick a word like “Go sniff!” and use it when you send your dog to an interesting post on a slack leash. Alternate short stretches of controlled walking with generous nose breaks.

6. Raise the difficulty one layer at a time

   Make a list from the easiest place to the hardest: hallway, yard, quiet side street, neighbourhood, park, the shop entrance. Spend a week at each level and move up only when the leash hangs slack for most of the walk. When you meet another dog, add distance instead of shortening the leash.

   💡 A dog that has run and sniffed for half an hour before the lesson learns twice as fast. Don’t train a head full of unspent energy.

Common mistakes

• Letting pulling work sometimes — one give-in in ten walks keeps the habit alive for months.
• Pulling back on the leash — the dog instinctively braces against the pressure and pulls even harder.
• A retractable leash on every walk — the constant light tension teaches the dog the line is always taut.
• A walk with no sniffing — a dog that isn’t allowed to use their nose makes up for it by pulling towards everything.

Problems & solutions

My dog pulls so hard they choke themselves.

First move the leash off the collar and onto a harness — constant pressure on the throat risks the windpipe and deserves a vet check. Then start again in the hallway, where pulling isn’t a habit yet, and raise the difficulty only after a week of clean walks.

They walk nicely until they spot another dog or a cat.

At that distance your dog can no longer think, let alone hear you. Turn and move away until they start noticing you again, then reward every calm look towards the other dog from there. Close the gap by a few metres a week.

We stop every two steps and the walk turns into torture.

Split the two jobs: two or three short ten-minute training outings a week for the rule, and run the rest of your walks on a longer line with the honest aim of tiring your dog out. Mix them and you’ll both end up frustrated.

Reward ideas

Tiny soft treats in a waist pouch — at the start you’ll need dozens per walk. The strongest reward, though, is simply carrying on forwards and the cue to go sniff.