Small dog leash skills

I took Mille and Teina out today by themselves. Millie is a miniature Schnauzer, and Teina is a Cairns Terrier - both small dogs. Often they walk with the big dogs, but it was a good opportunity today for me to practice my "small dog leash skills."

Let me explain... Small dogs are so light, it's not hard to pull them away from distractions or pull them to where we want them to be. It's relatively easy to do this, and it's a successful strategy for us humans, so we're very likely to keep doing it. In that sense, we get positive reinforcement for pulling the dogs.

From the dog's perspective, however, they can get used to pulling and being pulled, and aren't learning any different behaviour. They can easily learn "I get a jerk on the leash (no pun intended), but I keep walking, so I can put up with that". This is negative reinforcement where they find the pressure comes off (after the leash jerk) and then this is followed by the reward (forward movement).  Exercising "small dog leash skills" involves a careful, soft touch with the leash, using it to communicate more than restrain. It is treating the small dogs as if they were the big dogs that they already believe themselves to be.

In the second half of the walk, I was very pleased to see both these girls walking beside me hands-free.