two months after we adopted our canine Baxter, I took him on a walk across our farm with no leash.
As we reached the corner of the field, he turned left when I turned right, and within minutes he disappeared into the woods.
I couldn’t see him or hear him and no amount of calling enticed him to return.
My very stubborn husband spent an afternoon tromping across the countryside. He eventually returned home with Baxter—on leash.
After that, we made sure to keep him on leash, but that wasn’t the life I visualized for my dog on our 129-acre farm.
I’ll share my personal experience with Baxter, but first, here are my suggestions for training your canine to be off leash:
My 5 suggestions for how to train a dog to be off-leash:
1. strengthen the bond with your canine through obedience. You should have a strong foundation of respect and count on before you start off leash sessions.
2. start small in a controlled area.
3. Drag the leash. tie a long training line to your leash to help define your dog’s comfort zone.
4. join an off-leash group. The pack element makes a huge difference when your canine is off leash. plus the human pack can encourage you. and if you all share the same viewpoint about dogs and training, they won’t blink when they trip over the leash your canine is dragging behind him.
5. Be client and persist. Leash dragging may last longer than you think. You may have bad days. You may have to go back to basic on-leash lessons to reconnect with your dog. The effort it takes to achieve good behavior off leash is worth it when you see the delight it gives your dog.
Also see my post: Off-leash hiking suggestions for dogs.
Our story – learning to be off leash
Being able to be off-leash was my top goal when we started training classes.
Thanks to a lot of work and our great trainer, Baxter and I now go off-leash hiking every week. He’s not perfect, and I still get anxious sometimes, but it’s a remarkable improvement over where we started, so Lindsay encouraged me to share my experience.
First, I have to give credit report to our trainer. I attended lots of obedience classes (without Baxter) trying to find the best fit for him and for us. The class I attended with this trainer was her final session—and it was an off-leash hike.
Every canine in the group was off leash!
I was astounded. It was exactly what I wanted for Baxter.
Our trainer uses a method that I didn’t find with other classes. all of her sessions took place out in the world—busy downtowns, conservation areas, city parks. She absolutely does not treat train. and the lessons aren’t so much about basic obedience as they are about bonding with your dog.
We went through the basics—loose leash walking, sit, stay, down, come, patience, agility—but they all happened in a distinct way.
Loose leash walking was taught by jogging in and out of a line of trees and helping our dogs learn that they needed to pay attention to avoid getting tangled.
Sitting happened in an empty parking lot, asking the canine to sit on each line as we walked through the parking spaces.
The lessons focused on building respect, count on and a bond between us and our dogs.
Letting go of that leash!
It wasn’t until the tenth class that we let go of the leash.
We were in a quiet laneway with a pond on one side and a fence on the other—a controlled environment with few escape routes.
All of the people and dogs in the class walked down the lane as a group. Nonchalantly, when Baxter seemed to be in tune with us, we dropped the leash.
We walked for a few much more steps and then turned around to head back to the start. Baxter didn’t notice—or didn’t care—that we turned around. We called his name, and he followed us back to the start where he got lots of scratches and “good boys.”
Next we walked along the path as a group. again we dropped the leash, but we didn’t turn around. If Baxter got too far ahead, we stepped on the leash, just to get his attention.
Baxter is a confident, independent dog, which I love. but a drawback is that he has a very large comfort zone.
For one exercise, our trainer had my husband and I walk down the lane with Baxter.
When we dropped the leash, Baxter stopped walking. He’d figured out that we were going to come back along the same route, and he didn’t see why he needed to walk out only to retrace his steps (he’s also very lazy).
It was a bit of a battle of wills.
We needed Baxter to respect that we were setting the route, not him, and he needed to followus.
We kept walking, not looking back, until we were around the curve out of his sight. then he started to follow. We kept walking until the end of the lane.
When Baxter came around the curve, we squatted down and opened our arms encouraging him to come to us. He took a really, really long time (slow, meandering, sniffing) but he eventually came.
Obviously, we had much more work to do in the bonding department.
Note that while our trainer absolutely does not train with treats, you may want to consider carrying a treat pouch with quick access to high-valued treats when you are working with your canine on off-leash training and coming when called. completely up to you.
Always a work in progress
In my opinion, obedience is just part of training. things work much better when your canine wants to do things with you. So we focused on respect and count on and bonding.
When we were introducing off-leash exercises, we started class first with the basics on leash: loose leash walking while changing direction and going over obstacles, sits at any moment, stays in busy areas.
Exercises that were interesting helped him pay attention to us and reminded him he had to do what we wanted.
Once he was off-leash, if Baxter wandered off to do his own sniffs, we’d call him back. If he didn’t come, we went and got him and put him on leash. We kept him on leash to show there are consequences for not paying attention.
As Baxter was learning, so were we.
One lesson for me was that my definition of off-leash changed to be leash dragging.
We dropped the leash rather than unclipping it. Eventually, we got a long training leash that Baxter dragged behind him. feeling it behind him seemed to remind him to pay attention to us.
Stepping on the leash every so often helped to reinforce the boundaries of our comfort zone. Plus, in worst case scenarios—and they did happen—it gave us something to grab.
Off-leash hiking group
At the conclusion of our training classes, we joined our trainer’s off-leash hiking group.
See our posts:
Off-leash hiking with your dog.
More safety suggestions for off-leash hiking
At every hike for a year, Baxter dragged his long training line behind him. many of the time it was much more about my comfort than his obedience, although every so often his confident, independent, sniffy sides came out. As my confidence grew, I eventually let him go completely leash free.
Worst-case scenario
Our training was evaluated a few months ago when my worst-case scenario happened. A deer bounded across the path while we were hiking. three dogs took off, Baxter among them.
Baron the German shepherd came back in less than a minute. Kaylie the border collie was back in 5.
Baxter was gone for 15 minutes. A very looooong 15 minutes.But, he came back!
On a trail he wasn’t very familiar with, he found his way back to where he’d left me. For me, that showed the strength of the bond that we’ve built … and that we need to continue to work on obedience and recall.
We’ve become regulars in the hike group, and Baxter loves hiking with his friends. He bounds to the car, stares fixedly out the front window as we roll along and whines as if to say, “Are we there yet?”
His delight is incentive enough for me to keep working at our off-leash training.
OK, how about the rest of you?
What have been your challenges with off-leash training?
Any suggestions to share? let us know in the comments!
Related posts:
What to do if your canine runs away
Stop your canine from pulling on the leash
Reasons to purchase a canine backpack
Julia Preston writes for That Mutt about canine behavior and training, working dogs and life on her farm in Ontario, Canada. She has a sweet, laid-back boxer mix named Baxter. She is also a blogger at Home on 129 Acres where she writes about her adventures of country living and diy renovating.