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Hoots : How to make my dog follow me when I take him out of the house I always took him out by putting a leash on him and he never listened to me when we were out. Recently, I am taking him out without any leash and he goes here - freshhoot.com

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How to make my dog follow me when I take him out of the house
I always took him out by putting a leash on him and he never listened to me when we were out. Recently, I am taking him out without any leash and he goes here and there and makes himself dirty and doesn't even listen to me no matter how many times I call him. If I hit him slowly or force him towards our house, he becomes aggressive and tries to bite me. I shout strongly and throw him few times and then he enters the house.

How should I train him to follow me in the road? He always used to be inside our house so we never bothered to train him in his early days so I am having a hard time teaching him this.

EDIT: He is a cocker spaniel and almost 3 years now.


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Forcing your dog to do something doesn't teach him anything. Instead, think about what motivates your dog and use that to teach him to do what you want. If your dog isn't behaving on leash, you certainly don't want to try working off leash, even if you're in a secured area.

Since you're not asking about a precise heeling behavior, but instead a very loose leash walking, I'll try to keep my suggestions specific to that, although any reward-based heeling lessons will also work to help keep your dog close to you.

Relationship Building
The absolute best way to keep a dog close to you is to build value for being near you. Play games with him, give him treats for coming to you, teach him new tricks. Anything from playing tug to teaching weaves is fine. What you do is dependent on what the dog likes, and once you figure that out, you can begin to transfer that value into what you like.

Reinforcement Zone
Reinforcement Zone (RZ) is a great place to start with keeping your dog close. RZ is simply the area directly to the left or to the right of you. When your dog comes into that spot, he gets a treat. Eventually, he'll start coming into that spot more frequently and you can begin moving around and rewarding him for staying in that spot.

Random Movements
When you're walking, be unpredictable and make sudden directional changes to keep your dog's attention. If he follows you correctly, reward him for a good decision. Don't be worried if he fails, that's when he's learning!

Reward ONLY Desired Behavior
If your dog runs off on his own without you releasing him and he comes back, don't reward him. Even though you might think you're rewarding his recall, you're actually rewarding the chain of him running off and then coming back. Instead, wait a few seconds or move a few steps before rewarding him. Make sure the decision you're rewarding is your dog staying near you, not running off and coming back. That said, teaching a "go play" cue can be a great reward and stress reducer for the dog. If you've given the dog permission to go run around away from you, definitely reward when he comes when called.

Manage Distractions
Don't expect your dog to follow you if there's a squirrel 50 ft away right away. That's a HUGE distraction. Start in a quiet environment and slowly build up the amount of distractions, giving your dog the choice to fail but not the ability to be rewarded for failure.

These are just a few suggestions. For now, I would focus on relationship building games. Don't even consider having your dog off leash in an uncontrolled environment until you are 100% sure you can recall your dog off of ANYTHING (yes even if he's charging full speed at a rabbit or squirrel). This is for the dog's safety.

Further reading:

Classical Conditioning [wiki]

Premack's Principle [wiki]


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