I took my (17w, miniature poodle, female) for a walk the other day. Just outside my house as I had done before. However I had previously lost her harness, and had to order a new one. She can’t walk in a lead and collar as she can slip the collar easily, so she hadn’t been out for a walk in 3 days at this point, but had been running around in the garden and visited my grandmas house (and her dog) twice.
When I took her out, I couldn’t even get to the end of the road. She kept crying and pulling back to the house, I think she slipped her harness at one point too, luckily I have her harness linked to her collar so she was still attached to me.
I went back home and had the idea to bring my other dog along to see if it gave her more confidence; it did. Too much confidence. Now, she was pulling and jumping on my other dog, biting her lead, getting tangled up with her to the point BOTH of them slipped their harness at the same time. 😫
So today, I took my puppy out for a walk, and just let her take me where she wanted to go. I let her pull on the lead (although she walked nicely most of the time) and followed wherever she wanted to go, even if it was up and down the same path 3 times. When she started crying, it had been about 10 minutes and I figured she had had enough, so we went back home, her pulling me a bit more eager to go home. Now she is tired and sleeping.
Was what I did today the right thing to do? My thought process is that while she builds up her confidence, I shouldn’t focus too much on training and instead focus on reassuring her and using positive reinforcement whenever we see a car, person, bird etc. and when she is more confident, I can focus on training.
Am I doing the right thing?
submitted by /u/67flowers
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