This page on Working Off-Lead is part of the Auxiliary Section
of the Beginners Course of the D. S. Dog Training Workshop

Teaching Your Dog to Behave and Obey Off-Lead

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Sidestepping the Issue of Legality

These days, pretty much everywhere, it is against the law for anyone to walk their dog off-lead almost anywhere on public property. But that is an issue of legality, while this page focuses only on matters of safety, practicality, and feasibility.

Specifying the Degree of Control Required

When it comes to managing their off-lead dog in public, many people say that they are "in control," when what they really mean is that their off-lead dog is not doing anything to cause a problem at that particular moment. But to truly control an off-lead dog, you need to know that he will always immediately follow your verbal instructions, even when the unexpected happens and both of you are greatly distracted.

If your off-lead dog sees a cat or a squirrel, can you keep him from running after the animal just by speaking to him? If he sees another dog on the opposite side of the street, are you going to be able to keep him from racing across the roadway to greet the other animal, or worse yet, to attack it?

When another canine challenges your off-lead dog and his every instinct tells him that it is time to fight, can you override those thousands of years of genetically-ingrained belligerence by way of verbal instruction alone?

One of our sister websites features a page called Four Levels of Licensing. That article describes a new animal control system that, if adopted, would allow you to become licensed to walk your dog off-lead. To get an idea of the level of control that you will eventually need to achieve in order to manage your off-lead dog safely in a public place, please read that page.

Controlling the Distraction Factor

The general rule is that the more distractions there are when you are working with your dog, the less chance there is that he will learn what you are trying to teach him. Also, the more distractions there are at the moment you issue a command, the less chance there is that your dog will obey you.

Therefore, it is usually best if your start off spending much of your time together training your dog indoors while the two of you are alone, since the outdoors tends to be maximally distracting, especially if other animals are present. Then over time, you can gradually teach him and command him in other places, and in the presence of other people and other animals as you slowly and incrementally fade him into environments that are more challenging.

If you are practicing obedience skills with your dog, and you find that he is inattentive or unusually sluggish obeying commands that he usually executes in better fashion, shift back to a less challenging environment, where there are fewer distractions present.

When to Get Started

Whenever possible, it is best to start training your dog for off-lead work while he is still very young.

There are several advantages to starting your off-lead training early on. For one thing, obviously, for a new puppy, finding himself outdoors and off-lead for the first time is just one more new experience in an unexplored world of first-time events. So the young pup will take it in stride.

In contrast, a dog who finds himself off-lead for the first at a more advanced age may well become so overwhelmed with excitement that his behavior could become problematic.

Also, older dogs are larger and faster, so if one does take off on you, or races off into the distance to do God knows what, you could have a major problem on your hands. Whereas, with a small pup toddling on little legs, you can outdistance him so easily that a sudden breakaway escape would seem extremely unlikely.

To add to the argument, pups lack the capacity for belligerence, so having a very young dog off-lead represents little in the way of a serious bite danger to unknown persons or pets, which is always an important consideration. By starting outdoor work with your little pup early on, you can ensure that, by the time he is old enough to want to deliver a serious bite, you will have had plenty of time and many opportunities to bring him to an understanding that such behavior is simply not acceptable, and will not be tolerated.

If you are thinking that you want your dog to be vicious, then, boy, are you on the wrong website! A pugnacious dog is a blight on the species, and good for nothing other than being held as a prisoner in your backyard. If you fear the people around you and want your dog to serve as a buffer to any possible aggression, then, my advice to you is to acquire a dog that is descended from a guarding lineage, and then interact with him lovingly as you raise him to be gentle and train him to be under perfect verbal control. For some reason, most people seem to fear perfectly trained dogs as much or more than attack trained dogs. Therefore, both can serve as a deterrent to aggression. But the former will always remain a source of security and a constant joy to his owner, while the latter will forever be a ticking time bomb, a continuous catalyst for anxiety, and the potential source of a financially ruinous lawsuit that won't quit.

Click here for more information on attack training, and an explanation of why it is almost never a good idea to foster belligerent behavior in a canine.

Fostering Your Off-lead Pup's Belief that He Must Always Remain In Close Proximity

One of the basic truisms of the canine perspective is that dogs tend to think that things should always be as things have always been. You can make that work very much to your advantage when working outdoors, off-lead with your puppy.

As a tiny pup, your dog's pint-sized legs are so short that he has little choice but to walk in close proximity to you. What option does he have when he can't outdistance you enough to leave you behind? Besides, at that age a well bred dog will have an instinctive desire to stay right with you.

All you have to do is to make sure that you keep your puppy physically close to you while you and he are out walking off-lead together, and keep it up over time, and he will eventually conclude that he is always supposed to remain right with you, even when he is off the lead. That should dramatically increase the possibility that your off-lead dog will choose to stay close by your side, even after he grows so quick and agile that it is only his sense of what he is supposed to do that keeps him from sprinting away, off into a new life.

In truth, some breeds are not genetically predisposed to move in close order with the members of their pack, while others are. Therefore, how close your off-lead dog tends to gather by your side will depend to a large extent on his breed. Nonetheless, you can maximize your dogs natural tendency to stay close by, by keeping him close by your side while he is still young and it is still relatively easy to do. In that way you can get maximum mileage out of your dog's belief that things should always be done as they have always been done.

The Off-Lead Dog in the Critical Stage

There is an even better argument, or perhaps I should say, a better set of arguments for starting off-lead training with your dog while he is still a young pup.

As I said in the first part of the section on the basics of dog training, for about the first twelve weeks of your dog's life, he will be in that brief window of time known as the critical stage of development, when lessons are profoundly learned. If your free form off-leash dog gets in the habit of staying close by your side while out walking during his critical stage, the chances that he will develop a lifelong habit of staying close by your side will be dramatically increased.

Just be sure, before you start working with a puppy, that you read The Age at Which Training Should Begin.

The Need to Choose Your Off-Lead Locations with Care

Especially when you first start working with your dog off-lead, it is essential that you limit your walks to locations where there is very little possibility that anything can go wrong. Most preferred are large, open, and unoccupied areas where there is no traffic and there are no animals to attack or distract, and no humans who are likely to find the presence of your off-lead dog to be objectionable.

Never let your dog off the lead in a place where you have trouble controlling him on the lead. Indeed, you should never allow your dog to walk free of attachment in any given place, unless you are reasonably sure that nothing serious can go seriously wrong in that location.

Of course, for any dog that will be moving off-lead, obedience training and street safety training are absolute necessities.

The Three Keys to Success in Training an Off-Lead Dog

There are three key elements that come together to determine whether your dog will eventually be able to reach the level of mastery that characterizes a level four dog.

The first key to success is to have a dog that is descended from one of the breeds that are genetically predisposed to develop first-rate obedience skills.

The second key has to do with the knowledge, skills, passion, dedication, and consistency of the people who are raising and handling the dog, because always, to a large extent, the behavior of any given dog is reflective of the behavior and the skill set of his humans.

Overlearning is the third key to raising a dog who can be counted on to behave in a controlled, predictable, trouble-free fashion off-lead. Your dog will need to learn, learn, and overlearn his commands on lead before he can be counted on to perform reliably and consistently off-lead.

The Chances that Your Dog Can Succeed Off-Lead

If you want your dog's behavior to be perfect, then, your dog will need to have a genetic predisposition to succeed, and your performance as a dog handler will have to be nearly perfect as well.

However, provided that your dog is well bred, well raised, well handled, and of one of the breeds that are predisposed to develop obedience skills, he will, by degrees and inches and months, eventually reach the point where he can be depended upon to function off the lead in a disciplined and trouble free manner.

Go to the index for this article

This page on Working Off-Lead is part of the Auxiliary Section
of the Beginners Course of the D. S. Dog Training Workshop