3 Super Easy Loose Leash Walking Games to Boost Engagement

In this blog post discover how you can turn your daily walk into a game to help build and encourage engagement on your walks.

We all like a good game, it makes life more enjoyable. This goes for our dogs as well, in fact they thrive when it comes down to games and play, especially if they can win.

You can get a long way by making things a game for a dog; your obedience, recall, and engagement can increase tenfold with a good game.

The same thing goes for loose leash walking. A lot of people struggle with this because they fail to give their dog a reason to stay engaged and instead pull ahead and do their own thing.

What if I told you that by going through the next 3 games you could increase your dog's engagement and make them want to walk by your side with the possibility of play?

‘That's impossible’ you shout!

But we all have the ability to build a solid foundation of engagement from our dogs.

Engagement plays a critical role in achieving this balance. When your dog is engaged with you, they learn to respect the boundaries of the leash while enjoying the freedom to explore. Engagement also helps build trust and communication, so your dog naturally looks to you for guidance when distractions arise. By incorporating games into your walks, you teach your dog that staying connected with you is both rewarding and fun, leading to smoother, more enjoyable walks for both of you.

The game is very simple, in fact you may have “played” another version of it before.

When you move, your dog moves and when you stop, your dog stops. If your dog doesn't stop in an ‘adequate’ time they lose and must reset to your side.

The key is to start slow, you'll need a lot of high value treats to start off with. Start with a couple of steps and stop. Chances are your dog will keep walking forward, if so beckon them back to your side and reset (the score is 1 to you - 0 to your dog).

Repeat again, start walking with your dog for a couple of steps and stop…a few dogs hopefully will have predicted this and have stopped (praise heavily, make a little party and give a small jackpot of treats), but those who haven't just repeat this again.

When your dog stops and looks at you engaged, they've learned the game.

Slowly randomly increase the number of steps but not by too many, the goal is to slowly increase the distance whilst letting the dog win. Reduce the reinforcement to a more random schedule and slowly build distance.

You want to turn 180 degrees away from your dog but brace yourself, the first couple of times your dog will try to continue walking in the other direction. I used to watch Jasper walk by, plant my feet and hold the leash and he'd just reach the end confused to where I was.

When your dog realises the change, become them once again and continue walking in the new direction for a few steps.

Once again do your turn and the same as again repeat if your dog did not turn with you, but if they do throw a party, jackpot reward and walk in the new direction.

You can build this up in not only duration but complexity. If you have the space, walk in a square, figure of 8, circles etc. This not only will build engagement but will improve your own manoeuvrability on walks.

The final loose leash walking game is mainly just one for your dog, you are in this scenario the umpire that gives food, sorry.

When your dog is ahead of you galavanting and decides to look at you praise, reward them and throw a little party (they just won the game c’mon), then let them go back to galavanting.

The more you repeat this you'll realise your dog will check in with you more. This can also be a great starting point for building a strong recall.

You may think your dog struggles around distractions but in reality you aren't the highest value piece of property in town.

On top of building this engagement, you are also able to develop your own leash handling skills - how to manoeuvre around, how best to hold the leash, how to reward your dog as you move.

As mentioned above, games are great for teaching. The goal once you take the time to teach these games properly is to teach your dog the correct position on a walk and how to build distance around distraction.

Many of us struggle because we spend too long teaching dogs what we don't want them to do and it becomes nagging, boring, repetitive. Where we fail is not teaching them what we want them to do, showing them how reinforcing it is and then making it something they actually want to do.

The key to dog training is to make the dog think what you want them to do is actually what they want to do.

Hopefully you can use these loose leash walking games to start building your foundation and inject some fun into your walks.