Dog Leash Training - Fading Your Hand Target

Leigh Siegfried: Hi I am Leigh, with Opportunity Barks Behavior and Training. Today we are talking about how to teach your dog to walk politely on a leash. Now what we are going to be talking about, is how to fade your lower or your target. In the earlier clip we discussed how to teach your dog to touch and target your hand.

Now what we are going to be looking at is how we can make that a little more subtle and not quite so latent or obvious. We're not going to be spoon feeding the dog quite as much. So you can begin to move away from having food in your hand, when your dog is 80% reliable, which means four out of five times or eight out of ten times, if you would tell your dog to touch. They are reliably touching your hand, you can begin to use a little less food, because that's when we know scientifically that our behavior is actually learned. So what you are going to do is, your hand is rather than just being to like right on your side next to your leg, your hand is going to start to rest on your hip. And there maybe food in there and there may not be food in there. It's then going to return to reward the dog, and then it's going to go back to your hip.

So the difference right now is, that your hand is not just hanging out down there and next to your leg while your walking, your hand is actually resting in your hip then returning to the dog to treat them then coming back up on your hip. You will began to use less food and occasionally reward the dog, but again this is only after the dog is at least 80% reliable with this behavior. And we are going to add a little distance and take a little walk.

So now that we have talked about how to fade the use of as much food and using of hand target, we are now going to look at how we can work all of these skills in the real world.