Walking WITH your dog!

Walking your dog essential for good behavior. It is how you get rid of all that energy they have, and if you are dreading going for walk that probably means you also aren't going as often as you should because you hate doing it. Walking you dog is the basis for training, the easiest time to teach a dog something is after a walk and they have all the crazy energy gone, and all the pay attention energy left! It also makes your life inside much easy since your dog won't have all that energy to be bouncing off the walls. So take your dog on a walk everyday! At least 30min, and more the bigger the dog!


Being able to walk with your dog is a very important thing. Everyday I'm out with my dog and I see people out with their dog and the dog is walking them! Teaching your dog to walk with you is simple enough it just takes patience and persistence, just like everything else. I feel so bad for people when their dog is pulling them around and lunging at other dogs, I want so much to give them some advice, because I can see they are obviously frustrated with even the thought of taking their dog for a walk.

So here's my advice. Number one, your dog has to like getting ready to go out. This is very easy to do, first make a command for "outside." Also one for "harness" or "collar" helps a lot too! So when we are getting ready to go out for a walk, I ask Maximus, "Do you want to go OUTSIDE?!" and he gets all excited. Then I say, "Ok, then go get your harness!" just like a little kid has to put their shoes on before they go outside, the dog needs his harness. (side note: I DEFINITELY recommend a harness for big dogs! much easier to control them!) So Max runs off and finds his harness, and brings it to me! Your dog can easily learn this too, with some experience, it'll start with you calling it "harness" and saying "lets put on your harness" everytime you deal with it, and it'll be like any other toy you can tell him to get, except they know that when they bring the harness, they get to go out for a walk!

Number two, on the walk..... your dog should walk with you, not in front of you. If the dog is in front of you he is leading you, he is the "pack leader" to quote Caesar Milan, a genius... Even something that simple is a sign of dominance over you. So if your dog is pulling you, or leading you it is simple to fix., it just may make your walk a little longer. If your dog is pulling or leading you, just STOP. Stop and make you dog sit, and say "no", or "wait", or "don't pull". Whatever you want the command to be. Once your dog has calmed down, start walking again. You may look kind of silly walking ten feet, stopping; walking ten feet, stopping.... but your dog will figure it out quickly. They will learn that they don't get to walk if they don't walk right. It's as simple as that. As the dog gets better at walking with you, try to be proactive, so you have to stop so much. If you see the dog start to trot a little faster, or stop paying attention to what you both are doing, then give the leash a sharp tug to snap him back into focus and into stride with you. That will keep him always thinking on your walk, it's really when the dog just stops paying attention and gets too excited that they start pulling and walking ahead. So the trick is to keep them focused on you. Talk to them, give them praise, "Good Boy", when they are doing something right, and they will quickly realize the difference between, stopping all the time, and walking with you loving them.

The more walks you go on, the quicker your dog will learn, if you don't go on a walk everyday your dog will forget everything you were teaching him two or three days ago. So to reinforce what you want, and for the health and well being of your dog, go for a walk everyday!