My dog's a 1-yr-old doberman. We have never walked him. I'd like to start walking with him but he cowers when we put the leash on him. What to do?

There are no secret tricks for this - you need to train your dog in obedience and then take him out and socialize him. The solution lies in the dog learning to mind you and knowing what to do when you give him a command.

If you would like to learn more about the principles of obedience training a dog, read the description for my Basic Dog Obedience video. You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog must go through before it can be considered fully trained. You can also read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes.

I would also consider a small prong collar for training – the dog has been trained (by you) to lay down and cower and that this action works. Now you must train him that this no longer works and that he MUST mind – and that playing all of these games will not work – the only thing that works is to be obedient. But to do this you must understand the steps of dog training. I don’t think it is a good idea to just go out and start whaling on the dog for not minding when it has not learned that it MUST mind. You need to know the principles of LEARNING, CORRECTION, PRAISE, AND PROOFING.

What you are trying to do is jump to the PROOFING stage without going through the other learning phases.