Dogs In The Park

Zero loves to make funny faces at the camera! Do you have a picture of your dog making a silly face? Show us in the comments!

Have you signed up for Adventure Walks? Your dog will enjoy personalized training sessions, off-leash group adventure walks, structured rest time, and best of all, we offer pickup and drop off from your home within Guelph city limits. Sign up today! https://www.dogsinthepark.ca/adventure-walks

You'll often hear the term 'Positive Reinforcement' associated with dog training, but do you know what it means? Positive reinforcement is a hugely powerful tool, and you can read all about it's application as the Swiss army knife of dog training here: https://www.dogsinthepark.ca/blog/2019/1/26/the-swiss-army-knife-of-dog-training

Our popular tracking workshop starts this Friday, and there are still spots available! The workshop runs in two sessions, a Theory Session on Friday June 19, from 6:30pm to 8pm and a Working Sessionon Saturday June 20 from 9:30am to 4:30 pm. This course will introduce you and your dog to the fun sport of tracking, where you're dog follows a trail of scent to find an object or person. Tracking is a great sport for dogs of all skill levels, and is a ton of fun! You can register for the workshop here: https://www.dogsinthepark.ca/intensives-sales/p/tracking-ntf9t

Great advice from our Australian friends at Urban Dog!

Loose Leash Walking: The Mistake Almost Every Puppy Owner Makes

Look at John in this photo.
Bright eyes. Relaxed body. Happy expression. Curious about the world.
Relaxed ears, open mouth, soft eyes.

That is exactly what we want from a young dog.

Not military precision.
Not robotic obedience.
Not a puppy glued to your left leg like a furry satellite dish.

We want a dog that enjoys being with us while confidently exploring the world around them.

Ironically, many owners accidentally train the exact opposite from the very first day they clip on a lead.

And before anyone feels attacked, let us assure you that this happens because people love their puppies, not because they are bad owners.

The problem is that nobody explains what is really happening.

➡ Every Walk Is Training Whether You Realise It Or Not ⬅

One of the hardest things for professional trainers to explain is that dogs are always learning.

Not just during "training sessions."

✔ Every single walk.
✔ Every trip to the park.
✔ Every journey from the car to puppy school.

Learning never switches off.

Behavioural science has repeatedly shown that behaviours followed by rewarding outcomes become more likely to occur again in the future.

The dog doesn't need a treat.

The reward can be anything the dog wants in that moment.

✔ A smell.
✔ A person.
✔ Another dog.
✔ A patch of grass.
✔ A discarded chicken bone.
✔ A muddy puddle.
✔ A dead lizard.

Dogs are not particularly fussy.

If pulling gets them to something they want, pulling has been reinforced.

The puppy doesn't think:

"I'm pulling now but later my owner will teach me loose leash walking."

The puppy thinks:

"Pulling works."

And unfortunately, they're right.

➡ The First Mistake: Following The Puppy ⬅

We tell new puppy owners this constantly.

"Don't follow your puppy when it is dragging you towards something."

Yet nearly everybody does.

Why?

✔ Because life is busy.
✔ People are running late.
✔ They're trying to get to puppy class.
✔ They're carrying bags.
✔ They're juggling children.
✔ They're thinking about work.

And the easiest thing to do is simply walk behind the puppy.

The puppy pulls ➡ The owner follows ➡ The puppy reaches the thing it wanted ➡ Lesson learned ➡ Pulling works.

The difficulty isn't that this creates a problem.

The difficulty is that it creates a very successful problem.

Successful behaviours become strong habits.

By the time the dog reaches adolescence, owners are often shocked to discover their dog "suddenly" pulls on lead.

The reality is that the dog has been practising the behaviour for months.

➡ The Socialisation Trap ⬅

This is where things become even more complicated.

Most owners have heard that puppies need socialisation.

That advice is absolutely correct.

But many people misunderstand what socialisation actually means.

Socialisation does not mean allowing a puppy to drag you towards every dog, every person, every child and every moving object.

Yet that is exactly what many puppies learn.

A dog appears ➡ The puppy pulls ➡ The owner follows ➡ The puppy gets access ➡ Reinforcement.

A person appears ➡ The puppy pulls ➡ The owner follows ➡ The puppy gets attention ➡ Reinforcement.

Repeat this hundreds of times and the puppy develops a powerful expectation:

"When I see exciting things, I move towards them."

Not:

"When I see exciting things, I remain calm and connected to my human."

The difference matters enormously.

One creates a dog that can cope with the world.

The other creates a dog that becomes increasingly frustrated whenever access is denied.


➡ What Are We Really Teaching? ⬅

Here is an uncomfortable question.

When your puppy is outside, where is all the fun?

If we're honest, for many puppies the answer is:

Everywhere except the owner.

✔ The environment is exciting.
✔ Other dogs are exciting.
✔ People are exciting.
✔ Smells are exciting.
✔ Birds are exciting.
✔ Leaves are exciting.

Meanwhile the person holding the lead is simply the transportation system.

Like a taxi driver with opposable thumbs.

That isn't a relationship problem inside the home.

Many of these owners have wonderful relationships with their dogs.

The problem exists specifically when they go out together.

The puppy learns that all good things are external.

All reinforcement lives "out there."

Over time the puppy becomes increasingly environmentally focused and decreasingly handler focused.

This isn't stubbornness.

This isn't dominance.

This isn't independence.

It's simply learning.

The dog goes where the value is.

Always.

➡ The Blueprint We Accidentally Create ⬅

Behaviour is like architecture.

Every repetition lays another brick.

Every successful pull strengthens the blueprint.

The dog begins constructing a simple belief system:

✔ Exciting things are out there.
✔ Pulling gets me there.
✔ My human follows me.
✔ My human is largely irrelevant to the fun.

Nobody intends to teach this.

Yet many people spend the first year of a puppy's life rehearsing exactly that lesson.

Then later they try to teach loose leash walking.

It's a bit like spending twelve months teaching a child that running indoors is wonderful and then suddenly deciding you'd prefer walking.

Possible?

Absolutely.

Easy?

Not remotely.

➡ Why We Love Long Lines ⬅

One of our favourite tools is not a shorter lead.

It's often a longer one.

A 10-metre long line changes everything.

Instead of constantly saying "don't go there," we can safely allow exploration.

Dogs are natural investigators.

Their brains evolved to gather information.

➡ To sniff.
➡ To search.
➡ To explore.
➡ To interact with the environment.

A long line allows freedom without losing safety.

More importantly, it removes much of the conflict.

It is surprisingly difficult to reach the end of a 10-metre line if the owner is moving with purpose and sharing the adventure.

Instead of battling the dog, we become part of the experience.

Now the walk becomes:

"Let's explore together."

Rather than:

"Stay beside me because I said so."

Those are two very different conversations.

➡ Why Suburban Streets Are Often Terrible Classrooms ⬅

This may sound controversial.

Many suburban streets are awful places to teach young puppies to walk nicely on lead.

Think about it from the puppy's perspective.

➡ Cars.
➡ Bins.
➡ People.
➡ Dogs.
➡ Birds.
➡ Lawn mowers.
➡ Construction noise.
➡ New smells every few metres.

It's sensory overload.

Then we ask an immature puppy with limited impulse control to walk perfectly beside us.

That's a bit like taking a toddler into a theme park and demanding they maintain military marching formation.

The expectation doesn't match the developmental stage.

Instead, we often prefer quieter environments where puppies can succeed.

Places where they can decompress.

Explore ➡ Think ➡ Learn.

And most importantly, enjoy being with us.

Because enjoyment is not a luxury in learning.

It's the fuel.

➡ The Future Of Dog Training ⬅

For decades, dog training was heavily command-focused.

Sit ➡ Heel ➡ Stay ➡ Leave it ➡ Repeat.

While cues absolutely have their place, modern behavioural science has shifted the conversation.

The goal is no longer simply compliance.

The goal is competence.

We don't want dogs that behave because someone is constantly issuing instructions.

We want dogs that understand how to behave appropriately within a CONTEXT.

A dog that calmly walks beside you because it enjoys the experience is very different from a dog that is only suppressing behaviour because it has been told to "heel."

One reflects learning.

The other often reflects management.

The distinction matters.

The Real Goal

Loose leash walking is not really about the lead.

It's about the relationship.

It's about teaching a dog that wonderful things happen both in the environment and through you.

It's about creating a puppy that sees you as part of the adventure rather than the obstacle standing between them and it.

Most importantly, it's about building habits early.

Because every pull that works becomes practice.

And every successful habit becomes part of the dog's future.

John doesn't need to walk with military precision.

He doesn't need to stare at us every second.

He simply needs to enjoy moving through the world with his human.

When we stop thinking about loose leash walking as obedience and start thinking about it as connection, everything changes.

And that, perhaps, is the lesson most puppies are trying to teach us.

Do you have a dog? Dogs in the Park has a program for you! We have puppy classes, adolescent and adult dog classes, and a behavioural consulting program for dogs with behaviour challenges. Many of our programs are also available online, if you are not local to Southern Ontario. To find out which program is right for your dog, visit www.dogsinthepark.ca or email [email protected]!

Does your dog struggle with vet visits? Here are some things you can do to help prepare your dog for visits to the vet clinic.

Great way to play on Rocking Horse walk today.

Puppy classes at Dogs in the Park are a great way for your puppy to build foundations, practice socialization, and make new friends! You can read about our comprehensive puppy program here: https://www.dogsinthepark.ca/puppy-training-2025

Professor Hawkeye has some great words of advice: A dog cannot learn if their needs are not met. Dogs have needs for exercise, enrichment, social time with dogs and people, sleep, and nutrition, and cannot learn effectively if one or more of these needs are not being met.