Cane is a Kelpie mix who I had the pleasure of working with in order to teach his owner about leash effectiveness. I always learn something new from every dog that I work with, so I wanted to share a few things I learned from working with Cane.

I have found that working with dogs looks a lot like working with people and teaching them how to work with their dogs. At the end of the day, that dog sleeps at their house and I sleep at mine, so less important is how I get results with the dog and more important is how well my client can work with their own dog.

Cane's owner reached out to me after watching my "Ask A Dog Trainer" video about leashes, so I set up a session with him to coach him in how to walk Cane in a more relaxed manor. All dogs are sensitive to both physical and auditory movement to varying degrees. The ability to gauge those degrees and time your rewards and consequences is in a nutshell, dog training. 

If you've ever read about dog training, you've probably heard about compulsion methods vs. positive methods. In my opinion, the reason why there is such heavy emphasis on positive methods is because most people who are trying to work with a dog without a professional don't know how to use their energy to their advantage. This means that when we as humans get frustrated, we are sometimes unaware of just how strongly that is communicated to a dog through energy. Same thing when we are calm.

Because it's hard to train energy through writing, it's often safer to teach capturing a behavior and only reinforcing the positive behaviors. This is truly where I believe that bringing in a professional wins, because positive only training may not be effective if your dog has already developed bad habits and has malfunctioning behavior. A professional with balanced methods can explain what needs correcting, how, when and why.

This is why I am so glad that Cane's owner reached out to me. He was doing a great job walking with Cane, but was using a choke collar and Cane was pulling. Long term, this can cause serious damage to a dogs phasic. I helped them walk peacefully and with no pulling using a nylon slip, the first collar / leash that I turn to in most situations. 

Working with Cane, I was once again reminded that so much can be learned over the internet through many different outlets of education, but when it comes to energy and body language, it really is best to bring in an educated perspective, even if it is just walking on a leash.