Does your dog pull on the lead, chase everything that moves, bark and lunge at dogs, or make your walk an ordeal for any other reason? Then you may want to watch a documentary called Five Dogs, Five Walks.
You’ll witness some of the most challenging dog walks, with professional trainers and behaviourists from Adolescent Dogs, my favourite dog-training platform. My eight-month-old fast-growing puppy, Orson, has definitely benefited from the lead-walking techniques I learned by watching the documentary. He is now much more relaxed and manageable, but only a few weeks ago our walks looked like this…!
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Different Dogs, Different Issues
The head trainers and behaviourists from this award-winning training academy, Mike Newland and Jenny Trigg, have selected 5 different dogs to follow on their daily walk. You’ll be able to observe how these dogs – each with a different issue – are managed, and which exercises their owners should follow to improve their walking experience.
The Dogs Featuring in the Series:
1) A Poodle that’s scared of people, ‘barking mad’ at anyone who approaches
2) A Jack Russell that loves to chase cars and bicycles
3) A German Shepherd who lunges and barks at other dogs, dragging their owner behind
4) A Border Terrier that is obsessed with playing with other dogs, screeching in excitement whenever he sees a dog
5) A Working Cocker Spaniel puppy that’s getting used to walks in new environments, full of challenging sights and scents.
Real-Life Training Full of Challenges
What is unique about this series is that Mike and Jenny have filmed the walks in an environment full of distractions, including other dogs running to them and interfering with the training process. You will therefore have a chance to watch what they will do if things get ‘out of hand’.
I must say that I find this approach of the trainers rather courageous. The internet is full of dog training videos, but not every dog professional dares to film their training in real-life situations – e.g. busy parks with other dogs with unpredictable behaviour. There are many things that could go wrong when dealing with reactive dogs. The Five Dogs Five Walks is certainly an exciting documentary full of challenging situations.
Training Plan for Each Dog
As Jenny and Mike walk the dogs and deal with all sorts of situations, they implement specific training exercises tailored to each dog’s needs. All these exercises are available as video tutorials on the Adolescent Dogs‘ online academy.
Live Chat During the Streamed Walks
Each episode of Five Dogs Five Walks is streamed as a live webinar, which means that you will be able to chat with the trainers while they walk the dogs, and get your questions answered. All this will be available for playback anytime later, so if you missed the live-streaming dates, you can rewatch the videos when convenient.
How to Watch ‘Five Dogs, Five Walks’
If you are a member of the Adolescent Dogs’ VIP club, like I am, you can watch all episodes for free and replay them any time you want.
If you are not a member, you can sign up here, with an option of a seven-day free trial. During that time you can watch as many training videos as you like, and ask the trainers any questions you have about your dog. The head trainers will give you feedback on your training and help you build a training plan.
Send Your Training Videos for Feedback
You can send the trainers your videos for feedback and advice by posting them in their Facebook community group. I regularly send them my training videos with Orson, and always get useful feedback from them. Here is an example of a video that I sent them:
I made this video after watching one of Adolescent Dogs‘ training videos on how to improve impulse control and make your dog calmer. The training video was a part of their 30-day video series called Calm Canine Challenge, which you can watch as a part of your 7-day free trial, or can access anytime if you’re a member already.
Check Out the Lead Walking Course Now
As a part of your free trial, you can instantly access all Adolescent Dogs‘ video courses, including the Lead Walking course. You can check it out right now, and start teaching your dog to walk nicely on the lead straight away.
Here are some of the things you’ll learn in the Lead Walking course:
- Foundation lead walking exercises to get you started
- Teaching your dog to heel (and enjoy it!)
- How to stop pulling and how to walk with a nice loose lead instead
- How to hold the lead correctly
- How to walk past distractions
- How to greet people politely without lunging or jumping
- Which equipment to use, and why
- Puppy problem solving, e.g. refusing to walk on a lead, not wanting to wear a harness, etc.
- How to remove food luring
…and more.
You can follow the videos, do the exercises with your dog, film them and send them to Mike and Jenny for feedback. They‘ll always show you what to do if you get stuck. And if you don’t like shooting videos, you can just ask them questions or describe your dogs’ current training or behavioural issue, and get expert help 24/7.
Other Courses to Check During Your Free Trial
Apart from the Lead Walking course, you can check out other courses on Adolescent Dogs’ platform, such as:
…and more. Also, every weekend Mike and Jenny do Live Training Demos with new dogs, so you can see how they work through common training struggles with dogs that are still learning. You can watch these live demos on the Facebook support group, and join the live chat, or replay them later. Â
A Special Discount
If, after the first free 7 days, you would like to continue with your VIP Club membership (which you can cancel any time), then you can claim 50% off your first month by using the coupon code LUCIE50 at the checkout. Just sign up here, and apply the code at the checkout.
Let’s Meet in the VIP Club Facebook Group
It would be lovely to meet you and your dog(s) in Adolescent Dogs’ private Facebook group, which you can join as soon as you sign up. If you do, please look me up, I’d be delighted. You’ll find me under my maiden name Lucie Rejchrtova.
Below is an example of how I get feedback from the trainers. Remember that you can also reach out to them with any question as a part of your free trial.
Shares and Comments
I hope that this post will help you and your dog to have much nicer walks together. Feel free to share it with anyone you know that may find it useful. And, if you’d like to leave a comment or ask me a question, scroll further down to the comments form.
More Puppy Videos?
If you’d like to see some fun videos of my German Shepherd Orson, including some of him as a tiny puppy, visit his page called Orson’s Page.Â
BY LUCIE DUN
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Hi, I’ve just gone through your article on five dogs, five walks. I found it very interesting and I am looking forward to joining you on April,25. I love dogs for pets but believe I truly do not understand their behaviour sometimes, Sometimes it barks when there is absolutely nothing close that I can see, while sometimes it barks at immobile things. Thanks for sharing this amazing article with us, I will be sharing it further too.
Hi Kokontala, that’s lovely to hear that you’ll be joining us for the webinar! I’ll be there too, and I hope my dog will watch it carefully as well 😉 As you say, there are so many things we don’t understand about animal behaviour, a lot of it is pure mystery. When our dog Orson was a bit younger, he used to do the following: He’d suddenly stare into space, his hair on his neck would stand, and he would start growling. To our eyes, there was absolutely nothing to see. I used to find this a bit scary, especially when I took him to our garden in the middle of the night for his toilet break.
And as you mention objects, that’s funny too – when he experienced his first snowfall, he encountered a snowman and went completely crazy, barking like mad, clearly feeling threatened. Only after I lured him with some treats towards it, he realised there was nothing to worry about. Or the other day we were passing some bins in the street. All bins in our street are the same colour, black, green, or brown. Only one neighbour painted his bin light blue for some reason. And when Orson noticed this bin, he went berserk! It was rather funny.
So yes, doggies can be rather mysterious creatures, but they love learning new things, they love games and engagement. I look forward to learning new things myself at the Five Dogs Five Walks webinar on 25th April and hope to see you there too. Thanks again for your nice words!
These two are sure brave to do this program live with 5 random strangers’ dogs! Getting a new dog is so exciting but the challenges are very real as well. Walking can be a major obstacle with new dogs, and I see so many owners who have apparently given up on training the dog to behave while walking, since I see so many fully grown dogs walking the owner instead of the other way around. I look forward to this live program – there are lots of people who would benefit from watching it.
Dear Max, Thanks for your nice comment. You’re so right about the dogs walking their owners, haha! It’s not a pleasant experience – I am the first one to confirm this, as my adolescent male German Shepherd is discovering his strength, and is currently taking me for rather intense walks as well..!
But I know I’ll learn a lot from the Five Dogs Five Walks series. I’ve been following Adolescent Dogs’ online training for several months now and Orson has learnt so much already. Thanks to the training, he can do a good number of commands and tricks, has a lovely recall, can settle peacefully in his basket for long periods, and hardly ever disturbs us at night. We have a lovely bond, and he is very friendly with other people and dogs alike. All this is thanks to the daily training, with the support of Jenny and Mike from Adolescent Dogs.
So, walks and pulling on the lead are some of the few issues that we are currently experiencing; apart from that, Orson is a joy to be with, a really sweet boy. I’ll be watching the program live so I can ask the trainers questions in the live chat. If you’re there as well, give me a shout! 🙂
Lucie,
This sounds like it will be a great video to watch for a lot of dog owners. I see so many dogs that are completely untrained when their owners take them out for walks. I trained my dogs with gentle leads and lots of treats, and they don’t pull anymore. Took me a while though since I have kids. Having kids can put a real damper on training any dog. I’ve found that they like to let the dogs do anything during walks, and I’m the opposite. Sometimes, after my kids take our big dog out, I have to fix the pulling problem. But, she’s smart, so as soon as she sees that I’m holding her lead, she stops right away, especially when I say, Heel.
Thanks for sharing this! I bet the video will be great to watch!
Katrina
Hello Katrina, it’s great to hear that you’ve actually reached the dream of every dog-owner – turning your mutual walks into something to look forward to and enjoy, without struggle, and embarrassing (or even dangerous) situations caused by pulling. It’s admirable that you haven’t given up with your positive training, using treats and praise. A lot of people don’t have the patience and resort to more forceful tools such as slip leads or headcollars, or sometimes even worse type of equipment that can really hurt the dog. What you’ve said about kids, and their tendency to allow the dogs to do what they want, is true, and it can indeed slow down the training process, but as dogs are such smart learners, the learning mistakes can often be fixed in one or a few training sessions, once the dog is back in your hands – especially if they are filled with nice treats! 😉 Thanks again for your nice comment.
I just reviewed your article, I am a dog lover as well. Owning large dogs in the past I learned early on, they would need training and a routine. I had 3 Yellow Labs at 1 time. and 2 young boys crying out “Dad, Can we keep em”? We will take care of them. You can guess that Dad ended up taking care of them and they became my dogs. Taking my dogs for walks daily, required for them to learn how to act around other people and animals. Training is well needed for all outdoor dogs. Well done !
Hi Mike, Thank you for sharing such a lovely story (and rather hilarious, too 🙂 But seriously, you’ve got my respect! Taking care of and managing three labs must have been a mammoth task. It’s really sweet of you to have done this for your boys! I wonder what your walks looked like and how on earth did you manage to keep them all in one place, haha. But reading your story makes me feel more hopeful about my own dog who has entered adolescence and my arms can really feel that on our walks. I know that his crazy pulling is just a phase and that with proper training and patience it will get better. Thanks again for your comment, Mike, and keep well!
Hi Lucie,
Oh my god! This post is so useful for someone like me who is the new dog owner. Reading everything to how to take care and about their behavior is so helping me right now.
I can across this post at the right time and your writing I so easy to understand, clear and crisp.
I always wanted a dog so that I could train him and play with him.
Now I have both Dog as well as the blog that is helping me to train him to go for a walk and understand him well.
Thank you so much for such a great post. This helped me a lot.
Cheers!