Mastering The Leash: Choosing Between Loose Leash Walking and Heeling
If you’ve stumbled across this post, chances are you’re seeking ways to enhance your walking experience with your dog. Perhaps you’ve come across the age-old debate between loose leash walking vs heeling. The question looms: which one is the right fit for you and your dog?
In this blog post, I’ll briefly dive into the world of leash training, uncovering the nuances between loose leash walking and heeling. But here’s the twist: I’ll also explore how you can use the strengths of both techniques to increase engagement and improve your walks with your dog.
Walking a dog can be a joyous experience for many owners, but unfortunately for some, walks can be one of the most challenging and frustrating parts of both a dog and owners day.
Mastering leash walking skills can make a huge difference in the quality (and enjoyment) of walk you have with your dog.
When it comes to leash walking, the two main skills are loose leash walking and heeling. These two techniques are so similar yet so different at the same time, and even though the purposes are different, they can be incorporated into your dog’s walk.
Understanding Loose Leash Walking
Loose leash walking is basic leash manners. Understanding not to pull on the leash and stay in the required boundaries of the leash keeping it loose.
This is what the majority of people are looking for when it comes to walking techniques, nothing fancy just being able to walk and not being dragged along.
The concept of leash walking is very simple to teach, however many people get it wrong. Owners try to speed up the process, move too fast or just don’t make it fun enough for the dog to learn and understand. If you find yourself struggling with leash walking, check out these leash walking games to help your dog understand the concept quicker and easier.
I don’t really consider leash walking a behaviour but more of a mindset, you aren’t asking the dog for anything but respect for the leash.
Exploring Heeling
On the other hand, heeling is a behaviour, one that is more commonly used within the sport dog realm.
Heeling is being able to walk (or even run) and have your dog right by your side normally maintaining eye contact as they go.
As mentioned heeling is used in a more competitive manner, I feel a lot of confusion stems from the use of the word “heel” when walking a dog. Many owners actually aren’t looking for heeling, this falls more under a behaviour.
The Difference Between Loose Leash Walking Vs Heeling
The difference as mentioned above is that one is a mindset and one is a behaviour.
One has “loose” criteria whilst the other has expectations.
The majority of owners just want a dog that understands loose leash walking, they aren’t looking to have their dog look at them engaged (although that can be very beneficial for reactive, fearful and insecure dogs).
Integration Of The Techniques
Now that you’ve got a brief lowdown, let me explain the benefit of having both techniques under your belt.
We all understand the benefits of a dog that understands the concept of loose leash walking. Your dog won’t be pulling you around, trying to rush over to other dogs or people, barking around etc.
So what about heeling? Why would the average dog owner need that? The answer is engagement. There are times you will find there are distractions or triggers in the environment that could “test” your dog out on walks.
Being able to teach your dog to heel at certain times can be very beneficial in many situations involving distractions and triggers, especially if you have a reactive dog. Being able to call them in by your side and have them engaged as you walk past whatever may trouble them.
Heeling is harder to teach than the average leash walking. Heeling involves multiple separate mechanisms to bring the whole machine together.
By being able to bring these two together you can allow your dog the freedom of liberty through loose leash walking, and then reel them in to heel for specific situations.
Final Thoughts
So when it comes down to loose leash walking Vs heeling I believe having both these skills under your belt can be super beneficial and make walks less frustrating for you and your dog.
