I have been taking Greta (6 mo.s) out on a slip lead for the last two / three weeks in the mornings after I walk our other dog. We only make it a few houses; she's still young and is brand new to loose lead walking.

She does very well with engagement inside the house and in our back yard so we moved out to the sidewalk in front of the house. She gets pretty distracted which is understandable. It takes 5-10 min. for her to settle a little bit and begin to look at me. Is this pretty normal and I should just stick with it?

Related question- the neighbor walked by on the opposite side of the street with her two dogs while we were on the sidewalk; they bark at everything. Greta barked back and pulled at the lead. Meanwhile I'm dancing around trying to get her attention to redirect back to me and the awesome treats I've been offering... I finally held her lead shorter and held the treats directly in front of her nose. She ate them and after 2-3 times finally started looking back to me. Feels kind of like a fail on my part. Any suggestions?

When it comes to distractions, distance is your ally or your enemy. Rather than trying to tease or bribe your pup into focusing on you, turn her and move in the opposite direction from the barking dogs. When you get to a point where her focus turns to you, mark and reward, and MAINTAIN THAT DISTANCE until she remains focused on you. This is her new comfort zone, and this is where you want to work until she is noticeably comfortable working there.

After only a few short sessions, you may be able to start gradually shrinking that safe distance. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the work is complete just because she succeeds with distance. Many people will "test" the dog after a few successful sessions, which can immediately undo all of the progress that you made.

My dog is the one that everyone in the neighborhood uses to proof against distraction. She gives every passing dog, stranger, truck, and delivery van the full Tasmanian Devil treatment from behind her protective barrier, so the folks training assistance dogs and working on OB march their dogs up and down the sidewalk in front of my house. I don't mind so much when I am at work, but when I at home trying to relax, it is quite the PITA. It's a good thing I understand their motivations...

BTW, I'm digging that Dodgers cap. Cool dog.

Thanks, Duane. The neighbor walks every morning like I do; tomorrow I'll try hanging out closer to the front door when they pass and work back if needed like you described. Guess I just rushed it.

We did some distance work with a neighbor's chi that was behind a fence and she did great, but maybe the size of the dog (chihuahua vs two border collies) was a factor, too.

My hubs is a huge Dodgers fan I'll pass your compliments along!

I also change direction, when I notice a distraction is too high for my dogs. But when unexpectedly such a distraction occurs, one of my Pits is too strong and then she pulls awfully. A direction change impossible, I would have to pull and jerk and almost strangle her. Of course I try to avoid such situations, but unfortunately we can not see everything in advance.
Gladly they all know to stop when I stop and in case they were pulling forward I say "He!" Then they come back near to me and I can lead them into heel position. Even Slippie (the stronger one) then focusses on me. Then only I give a treat or a few.
Generally - if I'm not surprised by a distraction - I observe where their threshold is.
I go a bit further away - just to make sure I haven't estimated it wrong - and do some exercises with them which they know well and which they love.

Do you think this is ok or would you change something?

So this morning I saw the neighbor coming and retreated to the front porch / sidewalk immediately in front of the house and it went much better for Greta. The neighbor was thoroughly confused though, lol. She stopped and waited trying to give me the opportunity to go the other direction or inside the house. I had to shout to her that we were 'training' and I really did want her to walk by.

This comment or comments are by way of betraying how old I am and how fixed in my ways I recognize I am.

There are a few words I don't use when working with my mutts, and one is retreat. To retreat, a person has to recognize a circumstance it is imperative to avoid or one that is so distasteful as to shy away from.

In my experience, those recognition's are mood shifting, and the mood shift translates to behavior, body language, perhaps palpable emotion, and travels down the leash to my mutt.

I want my mutt to be confident in me and my behavior. I believe my bearing directly influences my mutt. If I am wary, I believe the dog will be encouraged to be wary or maybe insecure. I may not be expressing myself well.

When I walk one or more of my mutts, I do not retreat when encountering any other dog or dog person. In my experience, too many dog people seem to think their dogs are people, and that they exert some kind of mind meld with the creature. A shared brain, perhaps.

If I think the situation might rouse my mutts, I stop, sit them, and wait patiently for the individual and dog or dogs to pass. I do not, normally, invite interaction, am generally polite, and demonstrate control over my mutts. My mutts do not need new best friends.

I walk with purpose, and if I want the dog to be tuned in to me I engage in 180's to gently remind the mutt I am setting the pace and direction of travel. I am not a kite tail dog person, in that I expect to be the tour guide and not a passenger, and I expect the dog to get that. I see too many dog people with their leash arm outstretched, tension on the leash, and the dog pulling the person down the street. Not a fan of that.

When encountering another set, I shorten the leash, and if needs be, I sit or down the mutt or mutts. I stay in control of my space, and my mutts. I really don't care about the other set, unless there is an intrusion into my space, that I must deal with, not my mutts.

I have found, over the years, that treats can lead to reverse training. I have had dogs come through here that seemed to think that everything they did deserved reward. I'm more a head pat, chin scratch, belly rub, or verbal enthusiasm dog person. I want the dog to want to work with me, and see me as both leader, and provider of security, food, shelter, toys, etc. When I provide a treat, it is a treat, and randomly offered.

An anecdote. When neighbors' dogs get out and they don' return to the pleadings of their owners, I often get a knock on the door to help get their dog back. I generally get one of my mutts, though not Sam, and go out. The mutt attracts their dog, they play a bit, I recall my mutt, their mutt follows, and I take the dog by the collar and present it back to the usually embarrassed owner.

I think my mutts live high on the hog. The quid pro quo for that life style is to respond to me when I address them. I don't negotiate, I demonstrate. I don't expect the dog to be clairvoyant, so we work on our relationship, and not relationships I have no control over.

All that by way of offering that walking with your dog with confidence and purpose will achieve positive results. And retreating might send the wrong signal down the leash.

Obviously, dangerous circumstances require action but how the action is undertaken sends a message to the mutt, in my opinion.

I did mention I am old and fixed in my ways.

And so it goes.

EXCELLENT post Mike.

Seems like us "old timers" think a like......cause it works!

I would also suggest to the OP that the eye contact should be worked on with no distractions and build up to the higher levels of distraction.

Marker training for reward based training and corrections always available if needed.

Thanks Bob,

Marker training for sure. Sam and marker training initially was a fingers and hand issue. He had to be worked with to be gentle. And I mean really worked with. He treated the treat or reward tidbit as prey, and it took time for him to not grab it hand and all.

We eventually worked out a routine wherein he worked on command compliance with verbal enthusiastic praise, and a few treats at the conclusion of the session. Limited the finger and hand issues to a few tries per session. But we did get to work on focus and place concepts. And I got better and better at reading Sam's tells.

Now, a reminder to be gentle precedes a treat reward offering finally registered and the threat to fingers and hand seems a thing of the past.

When Sam showed up here he was very food reactive. Put the food down and step back. There was no way, without physical confrontation, to recover food or have Sam stop eating. If anything, any effort to intrude on Sam's eating was asking for serious trouble.
Very intimidating.

Initially I focused on downing Sam, placing the bowl of food down, and settling for Sam waiting until released to eat. Seemed a huge breakthrough when he finally got the idea to wait until released. Once eating though, it was Katie bar the door.

Sam, and the other dogs, really seem to like watermelon rinds as a treat. I cube some rinds, and they seem more than willing to eat the treats. Then too, I figure that they will work for anything.

Must be in a typing mood. There is no question marker training is wholly superior to most of the training approaches of years past.

Nice day here.

Thanks again.

I went through the treat reward with no skin taken with my present 10 yr old GSD Trooper.

It tool a LOT of work to keep him from just snapping at the treat.

He could draw blood even if it was offered on my flat, open palm.

Luckily he's probably the easiest dog I've ever had to respond to praise and a good scratch behind the ears.

He still acts like a goofy 6 month old lab puppy but no more skin treats.

FWIW, IMHO, there is a difference between retreating and creating distance from a distraction during training. The pup is new to walking, and the approaching dogs were shifting the pup's focus from the handler to the distraction. What Carolyn initially described was using treats to try to get the pup's focus, and it was not working.

IMHO, the pup needs more desensitizing to the distraction before he can expect to maintain focus regardless of distance, but that is strictly my opinion based on what I read in the OP.