Have you ever noticed that your dog is great at following commands at home or with a dog trainer, but becomes completely uncontrollable during a walk outside? Many owners struggle with this problem.
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Why don’t our dogs behave during a walk?
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✔️ Usually, when trying to pinpoint a root cause of this problem, it turns out that the owner only trains their dog at home or in a training park.
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And the thing is… dogs are not good at generalizing.
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▫️This means that when you teach your dog the “Heel” or “Come” command in at training park, you pup knows that he/she needs to follow this command there.
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▫️But if you ask you pet to follow it in a different place, it might be hard for him/her to concentrate: it’s a different setting, with a lot of unknown external stimuli.
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It’s basically almost a different command for your dog.
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So, it’s not out of vice that your dog doesn’t listen to you while on a walk. It’s just that he/she doesn’t understand what exactly you want or can’t concentrate properly.
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🐾So, what do you do if your dog doesn’t behave outside?
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It’s quite obvious: train your dog at different times of the day, in different places with all kinds of distractions around: bring more diversity to training sessions.
But don’t forget about one of the most important training principles: ❗️The level of difficulty should be increased slowly❗️
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So, if your pup is used to the “Sit” command at home, first start by going to a quiet place not far from home that your dog is familiar with. Train there. And then slowly start organizing training sessions in more and more places, gradually increasing the level of difficulty and intensity of distractions.
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Go to all kinds of locations, this will allow your dog to adapt to new surroundings and follow the command quicker and easier.
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Increase the difficulty and the quantity of distractions. This way you’ll slowly teach your pet to listen to you and concentrate even when surrounded by screaming children, fast bicycles and lurking cats.