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AutoMagic Attention on Walks! – Another Solution to the Leash-Pulling Problem
When your dog is leashed and you’re strong enough to hold your position, ????teaching a default leave it is as simple as standing still. ????You can set up a practice session with a desired distraction such as a container of food. Let the dog notice it and just wait, a little distance away so that they can’t get to it. When they turn and look at you, mark and reward, then walk away from the item.
Practice this a few times, marking and rewarding as they turn away each time.
Soon, what you’ll have is a dog who will default to looking at you when they see something they want.
➡You can put a cue with it if you like; I often do because i want to use Leave It in many contexts; however, I also will continue to practice the exercise shown in this video – where the dog sees it, wants it, but chooses to look at me and is rewarded handsomely for his choice.
????This is a clip from our recent LIVE training class – Can’t Touch This – Watch and drop a comment:
Do you see pros and cons with this technique?
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6 Replies
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One con that jumped out at me was the pup pulling and, having the leash tight. The tight leash may lead to an environmental cue that tight leash=treat and possible lead to pulling, even for a second to return to get rewarded (behavior chain).
The pro I see is, while on the leash you have more control and the dog is less likely to wander thus, getting the behavior to happen quicker.
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Nice one – @jenz you are right; and in fact someone posted recently in DD about that very chain occuring… so, how can we prevent it or fix it if it is starting to happen? 🙂
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I may start to mix in other behaviors such as a wait or sit or eye contact. Before the tight leash occurs, I may want to reward. I would eventfully make sure the behaviors I want are on stimulus control.
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Okay @jenz I see your point regarding putting in other behaviors… but I’m not sure what you mean about getting everything under stimulus control. Would you consider a contextual cue/default behavior (e.g., In this situation, dog should do X) something that is under stimulus control? I think by the strictest definition, it would not be, but I’m willing to see what you think.
I just came from a class where they were teaching the dogs 101 cues for all the things, and I thought: man! how tiresome to have to micromanage your dog that way! Whereas, I want to move toward issuing fewer instructions and have a more thinking dog.
What do you think?
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My thought is eventually putting a verbal or environmental cue to it and, only rewarding for the behavior when asked- instead of allowing the dog to potentially predict that the auto performed behavior of going to the end of the leash(tight) and then turning around gets them a reward or reinforces the behavior. My thought is the dog may not perform the behavior chain in an automated fashion vs only doing the behavior when asked.
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Okay – I see what you mean. I guess the difference in my thinking is after we’ve solved the chaining issue.
I want the dog to auto-magically check in with me, each and every time they see something they want/interesting, FIRST. Then wait for a release… does that help?
In other words, I don’t want to walk around saying “leave it” all the time. I want them to tell me when something is interesting by checking in. When I see them checking in (and looking back at the item) I can decide to release them “go sniff” or make a different choice (reward the auto-leave it; cue a leave it; walk the other way; cue something else; phone a friend, etc.) ????
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