Best Way to Teach Your Dog Friendly Respect

The perfect way to begin an appropriate relationship with a dog is to play a following game. When your dog follows you— around the house, around your yard or, on leash, around your neighborhood—you are, figuratively and literally, the leader and he, the follower. This simple, easy-to-practice exercise sets the tone for your life together.

Once your dog learns to respect you by following you and thus regarding you as his leader (alpha), he’ll pay attention and you will be able to teach him what you need to rapidly. Without attention, you cannot teach. Without respect, there is no attention.

Will your gentle leadership and training make your dog lose his charm, his naturalness, his spirit? Humane training has never bro­ken the spirit of any dog—bad habits, yes, but not his spirit. So no matter how old your dog is, or how long you’ve had him, let’s begin at the beginning, with a game of alpha in motion.

“Follow Me”

Always begin at home. Use your voice, a favorite ball or a squeak toy as lures and simply, and I do mean this, walk through your house, calling your dog to follow you. Be as playful and energetic as you like, always attracting the dog to follow along, never carping, scar­ing, shouting. Training should be fun for both of you. So don’t forget to praise as you go.

After a week indoors, five or ten minutes in the morning and another five or ten in the evening, move out-of-doors. If you have a fenced yard, you won’t need a leash. If you have no fence or no yard, leash your dog and continue to play the follow-me game.

It may not look like much because it’s so easy. But later on, fol­low me almost miraculously tightens up to become “Heel,” which used to be one of the most difficult and time-consuming com­mands to teach. So stick with it.

If your dog is a brand-new puppy, still getting used to his leash, follow him, then lure him with your voice or a toy to follow you, back and forth, back and forth, off leash indoors, on leash out-of-doors.

For grown or half-grown dogs, and for puppies as they grow, once the dog follows well and willingly, with his tail wagging, begin to change your direction as you go. Tap your leg, squeak his toy, call his name, whistle, inspiring him to change his direction and follow you. One way. The other way. One way. The other way. Praise your dog for all signs of cooperation and attentiveness.

After a week of short sessions, five or ten minutes at a time at most, make another change. Now when you change your mind and turn to walk in the opposite direction, don’t lure your dog to turn and come along. Don’t tap your leg, call his name, squeak a toy or whistle. Just go.

Suddenly, you are no longer predictable to your dog. He has to watch you carefully. If not, he’s going to give himself a correction. You have cleverly transferred the responsibility for paying attention to your dog. In fact, this is precisely what we are after.

It is a dog’s job to pay careful attention to his master. This means, eventually, he will turn with you rather than charging on ahead or lagging behind. He will stop and wait when you stop to chat with a neighbor, look in a store window, wait for the light to change or buy a newspaper. He won’t trip you on the stairs—or get stepped on— because he’ll watch your feet. And most important, as the object of his attention, you, not he, now have the role of alpha, or top dog, the very role you must have in order to educate your dog.

“Follow me” is the basis of two essentials: that the human, not the dog, must be the leader, and that the dog must learn to walk properly when out on the leash, taking on the responsi­bility of paying attention to his master’s intent. Being in charge is vital, no matter what size dog you have. But if your dog is small, the following game may be all you need to teach him to walk well on leash. And if he’s not small, not to worry, there’s lots more to come.