How to Train Puppies on a Leash

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Zephyr Clarke-Dolberg with Miami Dog Training in Miami, Florida. When we're talking about training a puppy on a leash it's important to know there's lot of different kinds of leashes and there's as different kind of collars. A lot of times you see matching sets and that sort of thing. One of the important things, especially with the collars, is that you want to look for a flat buckle setup. The flat buckle setup is a little different now, you tend to see lots of plastic clips that slide in, lock in place like luggage clips. With those ones, if something happens and the dog gets caught, they tend to break those snaps and they lose their ID. So look at a buckle clip as far as a collar goes, a flat buckle collar. Now when we're first training the puppies on the least, we want to first put that collar on and just leave it there for a few days. You're going to see them itching at it and scratching at it, it's just because it's a new thing on them. Pretty soon they'll adapt and once they've adjusted to that, you're going to just let them drag the lease around. You want to get them a nice light leash, preferably not a metal or chain but a cotton web leash. If they're going to be somewhat supervised then just let them drag it around while they play, let them drag it around in the yard. Let them experience time dragging that leash and with that leash on where they're not being controlled right off the bat. But after about a week of that or a few days you want to start taking that leash and it's important that you start your puppy off in the following process. If you think that it's going to be your dog's walk and that it's all about what the dog wants to do, that dog is just going to grow up and be conditioned by you if you don't get him following you he's going to be conditioned to you by you to be out in front. So once we actually do have the puppy on the lease and we begin our leash training, you want to if the puppy walks out in front of you you want to stop and walk in the other direction. That which again puts the puppy behind you. And depending on how old the puppy is you may want to use a choker or a training collar but if it's a real young puppy, just stop when the puppy gets in front of you and walk the opposite direction. Never letting them lead or set the pace of the walk."