So as you may or may not know, I clicker train Conker these days. He walks at a perfect heel, normally, because of the clicker. I don't care if he ranges out a bit but he chooses not to, since he knows if he sticks close, he gets treats.
In the past, pre-Conker past, I've tried almost everything to get a dog to heel or even walk with a somewhat loose lead. This was before I knew better, and here is my summary of these methods.
Stop n' go: Every dog I've done this with gets phyched up and runs/pulls harder or frustrated. Doesn't work.
Stop n' direction change: Same as above but more intense. Doesn't work.
Stop n' ignore: Dog will ignore me as well, range out to sniff and pull. Doesn't work.
Choke chain: Just flat out doesn't work.
Flat collar/normal corrections: Dog doesn't notice light corrections, dog doesn't like normal corrections, dog gets nervous or doesn't understand why they're getting pulled around. Doesn't work.
Clicker: Holy shit how come I didn't try this first?
So if you can't tell, the clicker is the only method I've gotten to work where a dog will reliably heel and keep a loose leash. I might have been doing the other methods wrong, I doubt that though, and while I've gotten loose leash before none of it was reliable and the dogs would break it if they wanted or got psyched up.
I use the loose leash method on this site and thankfully Conker and the Girls are all food motivated. If they weren't I don't know what I'd do.
Conker LOVES Zuke's treats and will do things he doesn't really want to for one. I don't even really need to click with him anymore since he just sticks to my side like glue now.
Juneau... She really likes TOTW so I use that. And while she wants to please, she gets riled up REALLY easily and tends to lock onto things and completly shuts me out. Very frustrating, but we're working on that.
Sasha... Click + food = I'll do whatever you want just keep the clicky thing working. I got her to heel on the first try where Juneau still wants to shoot ahead.
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