I'm due to do my silver kennel club good citezens test on the 11th of Nov, with Megan my 20 month old collie. Unfortunately i have just found out that this includes road walking on a loose lead. Megan pulls like a train because she is scared of cars. I walk her on a halti but she still pulls - the lead is never loose. I'm allowed to use a halti during the test but i don't think this will help us enough to pass. I have tried holding a really tasty treat just above her nose but she just ignores it or take the treat and lunges out again. She know how to heel indoors but this all goes out the window when she is out. For the past few months i have been trying the stop and start method. Whenever she pulls i stand still until she comes back to heel, click and treat whilst walking, but she then shoots forwards again. I've tried turning the other way when she pulls and she walks to heel perfectly until you turn back the way you are meant to go she shoots forwards again. walking backwards a few steps has no effect. So as you can see nothing is helping.
Does anyone else have any other ideas, and has anyone any experience of the silver test as i don't know what is allowed, i.e. am i allowed to stop and start, hold a treat e.t.c.
Thanks in advance, its so frustrating as i know the rest of the test will be a piece of cake for her!

It's been a while since I did some stewarding for KCGC tests, in my experience what the tester requires can vary from one tester to another. It's a shame you've only just been able to get the syllabus as you could have been working on this particular weakness for a lot longer........

I would make one point that if you are using the clicker technique as it's meant to be used, that it may be worth 'clicking' the moments when she is walking on a loose lead, rather than wait for her to pull and click and reward the movement back towards you, as she may now feel that it's the coming back to you that you want, and she's got to get out infront of you before she can come back (if that makes sense?)

That makes sense, but the trouble is she rarely has a loose lead. What i have been trying to do is walk a few steps first when she has come back and then click. Does that sounds about right? The odd thing is, sometimes she totally ignores the click, i guess because she is so focused on everything else so i think this could be half the problem.

From what I understand, as long as you only click when she is doing whatever it is you want, she will learn. But as has been pointed out, they can very easily think that the required action is "Pull-then-come-back", not "Don't pull".
:)

What are you using as a reward? Is it something that really 'rings her bell'? For some dogs it's simply the reward of being able to make more forward movement is sufficient reward under these circumstances...... And start with the tiniest little step in the right direction - it might even be worth going back to techniques used with puppies, such as walking in a small room and allowing the dog to decide to join you, which is marked and rewarded, rather than training in the outside where there are so many distractions, especially for a switched on BC.......

Have you tried anything to overcome her nervousness?

Maybe just sitting with her by a roadside to get her used to the traffic passing without harming her would help? Also you could try rescue remedy to take the edge of it until the cycle is broken?

Sorry i can't be of any more help, it would be a shame for her to fail the test on this one weakness. :(

Wishfairy,
Could you tell me what the rescue remedy is, please? Not heard that before.
Thanks
Tracy

Rescue remedy is one of the Bach flower remedies - completley natural with no known side effects.

It's mostly used by humans to take the edge of high stress situations - I used it on my wedding day ;) You just put 4 drops on your tounge. Although you can't feel it working it seems to help.

My friend had a dog who was scared stiff of getting into her car and her vet recommended it. To begin with the dog was still nervous but at least her eyes weren't bulging out of her head in fear. Once she'd done it a couple of times with the rescue remedy she realised that getting into the car usually resulted in a great walk somewhere and now jumps in at every opportunity! :D

Hi,
If you read the KC Good Citizen Award rules, which your club will have, it states that treats and toys are not supposed to be used - if they are, a dog is 'deemed as not ready'. Which in my opinion seems a bit mean! You might find Meg will not be too bad, as she will be with a group of other dogs (I presume!) - I would try and stay at the rear, as she probably won't want to go pulling past them anyway. My dog pulls as well, and wore a halti for the Silver, but it wasn't ideal as I had a really hard time when he kept trying to take it off! He has now got a Kumfi stop-pull harness, which is great - will definitely be wearing that for the Gold road walk. Cost about £11 from their website.
Hilda

Oh no, i didn't realise that you couldn't use treats as well, thats so unfair and definately rules us out then!!! (and possibly several others!) As the nervousness has been an ongoing thing i have been trying to remedy it for ages. I've tried rescue remedy, mimulus, Aspen, and valarian. They didn't seem to have a marked effect so i stopped using them. I might start using them just before the test though, it couldn't hurt. Does anyone know if you have to give bach remedies for a certain amount of time or will it work within a few hours? She is better than she used to be, she used to leap at them when she was younger, then she just weaved all over the place to get away, now she simply pulls, although i have a sneaky suspicion that its almost habit now, with a little bit of nervousness thrown in!
I tried sitting around traffic but if anything it made her worse. I have been giving her liver cake, which she loves, but when cars go past she won't take any notice, she is watching the cars. I have got her to look at me as soon as the cars pass for a treat though, that might work in our favour. Do you think the Kumfi dogalter would have more of an effect as the straps are stronger? The halti seems a bit flimsy to me. Also does the kumfi stop pull harness work well? I've tried a lupi but that only worked for the first few weeks.
Hilda, i presume your dog passed the silver in his halti, was the lead loose for most of the time or was he walking to the end of the lead? (Thats what meg does.) I've found that if she does this i simply have to lift the lead upwards as a correction and she tends to come back, do you think thats acceptable?

Hi Lucy,
On the roadwalk, I kept Cody (our Aussie), wearing his halti, on quite a short lead so that he had to walk beside me and not pulling forward. It wasn't really a loose lead all of the time, but I think as long as you've got control there shouldn't be a problem. One dog on a halti did fail, but it wasn't walking beside the owner - was leaping around at the end of the lead going from one side to another, sort of fighting against the owner (and the halti) - so I think, as long as you can get your dog to just walk by your side, even if the lead isn't as loose as you'd like, you should be okay. As an alternative to using treats, if you're desperate, you can always rub something smelly on your hand first!
I haven't had a problem with the Kumfi stop-pull harness, so far anyway - I wished I'd had it in the Silver test for the roadwalk!
Hilda

Is your girlie actually scared of traffic, or is she more in collie herding mode and attracted by and focused on their movement? Its just that it may be very hard to get good results from any training loose lead walking unless the traffic problem is somehow sorted out.

Have you tried training paying attention to you at a distance from the traffic? YOu have to start from where the dog is not at all affected, by the traffic, and reward good/appropriate behaviour, then gradually get closer and closer (over a period of weeks rather than days( until she is confident enough to pay attention to you/realises this is what you want) Special toy training may work well with a collie here rather than or as wellas food, to get her "switched on " to you:)

To be honest, i would have her assesssed to discover why she is displaying this behaviour unless you are sure. The lady at CHATS is a behaviourist with plenty of hands on experience of BCs, so maybe speak to her about it?

good luck

Lindsay

Hi Lucy,

Roadwalking my Bedli was exactly as you are experiencing, and he wasn't growing out of it. but I did cure him and very quickly in the end. The secret is to always be totally unpredictable on a lead walk. As Soon as the dog thinks he knows where you're going and tries to get ahead -CHANGE DIRECTION ! and keep changing direction until the dog realises that he HAS to watch you or get left behind or bumped :D But don't allow his lead to move away from you - keep your hand glued to your side at all times. Your dog will think this is a good game. :)

At first it's worth quickly changing direction (always at right angle to your original direction, or back the way you came) every two steps or so, then as the dog starts paying attention to you and keeping to your side you can leave it a bit longer, four or five steps or so and then a little longer until the dog is staying by your side at all times and watching you. The nice thing about this method is that if the dog lapses you only have to change direction a few times to remind him. It makes life much more interesting for the dog too as you become completely unpredictable and he has to keep up! Don't forget to talk to him and praise when he's keeping his eye on you.

This method works amazingly quickly - even on older untrained dogs, I had to look after a 4 year oild mini schnauzer who was completely untrained on the lead, and within 5 minutes he was walking to heel and watching me. I've also used it to train my 'untrainable' Afghan cross at 2 years and it just took half an hour to get him heeling without pulling. :D

Good luck with your silver medal I'm sure you'll get it.

Regards
Dill

from my experience of the silver good sits the dogs lead does not have to be lose, the dog must be under controll

but this will depend on the examiner u get also dont be afaid to ask if you can use certain items like a halti (as this maybe what you uasally walk her on) but i no that treats are not allowed and i dont think toys are either.

good luck

Ice

All the people I know that test the KCGST have said that NO head halters, harnesses, check chains are allowed and certainly no treats or toys. When I did all mine this was certainly the message that was put across by all the examiners in all the grades as this would defeat the purpose which is to show that a dog is well trained?

The dog IS allowed to wear a headcollar or halti if thats what you normally walk them with. I am very familiar with KC tests and have seen this many times, all with different judges. Maybe it would be best to email the kennel club if there is any doubt.

Thanks, I'll get my club to do that; as I know several people were disappointed that they could not take part in the test because of this.

Hi Tohme,
The five local dog training clubs round here all allow a dog to wear a halti for the Kennel Club GC tests. The only thing there has been controversy about is that there is one examiner who will fail a dog if it does it's business on the roadwalk, whilst an examiner from another club said that's wrong, because why else do we carry plastic bags with us.
Suppose we'll have to ask the Kennel Club to see what they think! Maybe some of the rules should be made a bit clearer.
Hilda

Thats very unfair, you can't control when and where your dog needs to go the the loo! I have been told that haltis are allowed, and i'm not the only one that has to use one, so i don't feel too bad. The good thing is that the examiner is a member of the training group and tested me on the bronze so i'm hoping she might be understanding. When i did the bronze i put a barrell with her name and address in on her collar as her disc didn't have my address on. When it came to the part where they had to check the following day the bottom had fallen off and the slip of paper had fallen out! We did pass though.
However, it is something that i would like to change as a dog that pulls is not a pleasure to walk. (especially when you have two!) I will definately try the changing direction thing and ask Sally when we start on tuesday. I'm not sure if it is fear, or the collie herding instinct. It seemed to start off as fear but now it just seems to be a fascination with the movement as she has a very strong chase instinct, although she does get very irrate as if it is fear, so i'm not sure.