“Taking It On The Road”

Below is page 81, and the topic is taking the dogs out for excercise and other excursions away from the house. If this page does not appear correctly you can simply read the synopsis of page 81 at the bottom of this page. All material is ©2010 Debby McMullen.

Directly above this page is a list of other pages you can read from the book, How Many Dogs!?

Exerpt from

Taking It On The Road

The relationship-building begins before you ever step out the door to take that walk. At this point, you may be getting tired of hearing me mention it but I cannot stress how important this is. The connection that you build with your dogs is your key to the smoothest running crew of multiple dogs, inside and out. How can you cement this when you are on a walk? Simple. Every single time one of your dogs looks your way when you are out walking, even slightly, acknowledge it. Mark it verbally or with a clicker and treat as often as possible (every time if you are using a clicker!). Be their cheerleader when you do this. Make it a big party. Make them glad that they looked at you. Give them what they like. Periodically, when they are ahead of you or looking away, back up and call them happily to you and count to fifteen seconds and during that fifteen seconds have another impromptu dog party.

Should you carry treats with you on walks? I am a big believer in doing so for training a single dog to focus on his owner during walks, so I cannot even stress how much more important it becomes when you are walking multiple dogs. Perhaps you are wondering why you will be tied to carrying treats on walks? Well, look at it this way: do you go to work without being paid? The walking part of the multiple dog equation will be your biggest challenge. Expecting this to happen easily without food rewards is unrealistic, especially during the initial training period.