Sunday afternoons!

I went to spend some time with a couple of the dogs waiting for a new home.

Neither walk well on lead but both are really quick learners!

First up is Tilly. She is a typical female Labrador around the age of 5/6 and utterly adorable. Just look at that face!

Tilly came into rescue with a horrendous skin condition but is slowly healing. You may notice her shaking herself a number of times. This can sometimes be due to stress but in Tilly's case its because her skin is still very itchy.

Tilly pulls on lead! This isn't because she is a bad dog or trying to be "dominant". She pulls simply because she has never been shown how to walk nicely on lead! With a little bit of training she soon started to get the hang of things.

We started by simply marking (with a verbal Yes) and treating whenever she was close to me, changing direction when she pulled in front. We don't call their names or try to attract their attention - we simply wait and then reinforce it with a treat and praise. 

You can see from the video clips that she enjoys affection too so we also use that as a reward. 

In order to let dogs know what we would like from them, we need to reinforce that behaviour. We pay them! 

When something feels good and leads to a reward, they are more likely to repeat that behaviour. 

We also have to make it really easy for them to succeed - we always set dogs up for success so the rate of reinforcement (treat payment) needs to be high to begin with. These can be faded out over time, once she knows where she should be.

There were a lot of noises today along with wind and rain but Tilly did really well. I don't think it will take long for her to be walking on a loose lead. Beautiful girl.