How to Teach Your Small Dog to Heel

Video Transcript

" Hi! I’m Melanie McLeroy with Taurus Training for Expert Village, and today we’re going to talk about how to train a small dog. So it’s time to start talking about how to take your small dog for a walk on the leash. Now most people take their small dogs for a walk like this. It’s not such a good idea to carry your dog every where, they like to stay on their own four paws. You can make them feel a lot more secure; and what really makes them feel secure is knowing that you’re in charge of the walk, not them. Now little Rico the Mi-Ki has on a harness that attaches on the back. With these small dogs, Mi-Kis, Maltese, Yorkies, Chihuahuas, you want to make sure you don’t have anything that’s putting pressure on their neck, because some of these guys are prone to collapsed tracheas. So instead I recommend some kind of harness. Now this particular kind of harness actually encourages dogs to pull because it presses against their chest, but there are some alternatives. Please check out the video and equipment if you haven’t already, or consult a trainer about what works best for your dog. Now what I’m going to do is use the name game a lot with Rico, our little Mi-Ki, to teach him to keep the leash loose. We’re going to start very small because the world is an exciting place. So let’s get up, and I’m just going to let him follow me and keep the leash loose. Good… So I’ll cut in front of him there and encourage him, come on little puppers, good… I got another check in there, I don’t know if you could see it. Good, excellent, come on. Now the reason I’ve started jogging a little bit earlier was to encourage him to keep up with me. Good boy, good boy, now it’s easy for me to manipulate a small dog with the harness, but I don’t want to do that. I want to teach him to walk by side because he wants to. Let’s go… good puppy, excellent, good boy, come, good. Now it’s a totally different story when we get out on the street, because it’s going to be very exciting. So work in your backyard, then your front yard, and then right in front your house, and then tackle the hike and bike trail. So that’s how to teach a small dog, specifically your Mi-Ki, how to walk on a leash. "