Your dog loves you the most in the entire world and you may feel the same way about your dog too, but the important thing here is do you listen to each other? We have all seen dogs dragging their owner’s right till the end of the street, just to get to their favorite tree or a fire hydrant. The person who is walking the dog ends up feeling like they have been in a marathon. What does one do if their dog has a mind of its own? Dog obedience plays a large role in the up bringing of your dog and there should be no compromises made.

Don’t worry you can change this behavior by taking some corrective measures for your dog. Don’t get frazzled with your dog because of the walking sessions, rather make it an enjoyable experience for you and your dog. You can teach your dog to heel ad listen to the command whenever you feel he is too fast or tending to drag you.

Chuck those choke chains: You don’t hate your dog, do you? Then why make it wear a choke chain or a prong collar that hurts it. A professional dog trainer would never use it and still train the dog to listen to him. Do not terrorize each other rather communicate with your each other. A dog can understand words like heel, stop, no, go and come, but the owner has to teach them what it means in the first place. Use a nice flat collar and leave one and a half inch place between your dog’s neck and the collar.

Never scream at your dog: When you scream saying “heel” or “stop” it sounds like “run” or “misbehave more” for your dog. Always use low, assertive and a firm voice with your dog. There is no point in getting your decibels high. When your dog listens to you, always reward it. Also the ways to reward your dog is by patting or rubbing his head and acknowledge the action by saying “good dog, for heel”. Don’t say good dog and leave it at that. He won’t know what was so good! Don’t worry about grammar because the dog is not worried about it too!

Maintain the same length for the leash: Keep the length of the leash same at any given point of time for your dog otherwise there is no point in teaching him to heel behind you. Do not get to a point when the dog has to pull the leash and you have to shorten it. The moment your dog is running or walking fast or you expect it to pull stop right on your tracks, go in front of your dog face to face and say stop and then say “heel”. The dog will look at you and understand. Repeat it every time your dog tries to run while on a leash. Give your dog a longer leash while training to heel because the dog does not feel restricted and learns to enjoy the walking experience with you.

While training your pet on dog obedience like heel, do not start with a retractable leash in the beginning of the training. Use a strong and firm leash which is long enough to walk your dog. The dog will understand that it has its freedom to heel to you but not get ahead and run away from you. Teach your dog the difference between walk and run, well he knows to walk and run but he doesn’t know what they are called until you teach him.