Right, so, scratch that. Penalty Yards are more effective than a choke chain by a factor of a billion. True facts, I took data. Why in the world did it take me a year to find this? Knocks the roots off "be a tree."
How do you like the new layout? Because I freaking love Blogger's new layout machine. There are some new blog in the roll, ch-ch-ch-check them out.
Ah yes, penalty yards! i absolutely hate the tree method with a green dog. Of course my real LLW plan is treat like crazy so the dog never pulls, gradually fading the treats. But when pulling does occur, it's definetly penalty yards! Once a dog knows though, I think the tree method is just fine, it just takes me to pause 2 seconds for my dogs to realize their error.
ReplyDeleteA lot of times Gatsby won't take treats outside, because he is outside! And there is stuff! Like grass! And pee! Life is very exciting when you're Gatsby.
ReplyDeleteBut penalty yard for some reason just worked. Within like five minutes. It was incredible. I think my walking backward had something to do with it, because about-turns weren't doing any good. He's still not at a point where I'd let other people walk him on a flat collar, but SO MUCH BETTER. So proud of the boy.
ooh I was also thinking today that I really like setting up some type of goal to walk towards. Like a bowl of treats, a toy, that tree of squirrels, the entrance to the dog park, anything the dog really wants. Then I do penalty yards towards that goal until we get there on a loose leash, the reward is the dog gets it. I like it because ordinary on a walk you have a thousand different things the dog wants at that moment, perhaps more so then treats, and it can change continuously. But with a goal set out, ideally the dog is focused on that ONE thing, so penalty yards is more effective then if your dog kept switching what he wanted every few steps. Of course you got to start out on an easy goal in your backyard, and work your way up.
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