If you could choose only one activity to enjoy with your dog for the rest of your life, what would it be?
My answer – I wouldn’t think twice before choosing hiking with my dogs off-leash! And had someone asked me this question 20 years ago when I got my first dog as an adult, I would have answered the exact same way.
Over any dog sport, competition, or activity, there’s nothing I’d rather do with my dogs than to go for a long, off-leash walk.
So for that reason, I put more work into raising my dogs to be wonderful hiking partners than absolutely anything else. I want our lifetime of off-leash walks to be fulfilling, meet their needs, and on top of everything else, safe!
It wasn’t until I began teaching my dogs Control Unleashed skills (for entirely different reasons) that I began to notice the significant improvement in my dog’s recall skills, as well as their general hiking etiquette.
So how does a program that focuses on helping dogs with arousal challenges work so well for our off-leash endeavors?
Control Unleashed: Carry Over for an Off Leash Life
First, consider this. When I’m raising a four-legged hiking partner, my goal isn’t that my dog comes running to me only when I call her. I don’t want to have to micromanage my dogs. It takes agency away from them, and let’s be honest, I simply do not find it enjoyable!
Instead, my goal is that I can trust my dog to decide when it’s appropriate to come to me, when it’s appropriate to check in with me, and when it’s ok to simply disengage and enjoy their walk. I want us to have a conversation while we’re out on our walks, rather than me constantly telling them what to do. And that’s what CU has gotten me.
My 9-month old Collie, Sunday, is my first dog who was raised from day one entirely with CU skills. She has also been by far my easiest to raise toward an off-leash lifestyle, even as she works through the tricky adolescent phase. Why?
- She has learned that eye contact and engagement provides her not only with food rewards, but with opportunities and information from me. Those can actually become two very powerful reinforcers!
- She has learned that she can take in information slowly, and in the comfort of a pattern, instead of just diving right into a situation. She has practiced avoiding becoming overwhelmed by partaking in patterns.
- She has learned that potential triggers are simply fun subjects to discuss with me! They are not scary, nor are they an opportunity to interact; they are a reason to come to me.
- She has learned to trust me, to ask me questions, and to come to me when she needs support.
This has all led to a happy hiking partner who will gladly come running to me when I call her! And even more than that, she’s using her CU skills to voluntarily check in with me when there are distractions, when she has questions and needs information from me, and when she isn’t sure if she’s safe. By building this relationship based around CU skills, I have a dog who can enjoy living a fulfilling off-leash life.
Get started with your first CU skill: The Up Down Game!
Criteria: Dog gives you eye contact to cue you to start the next rep.
- Starting with your dog in front of you in any position, place a treat on the ground in front of your feet.
- Wait for your dog to eat the treat.
- As soon as they eat it, click and then place another treat down.
- Wait for your dog to eat the treat, then mark as they begin to bring their head up.
- Place another treat on the ground, and this time mark for a higher head raise.
- Continue to shape the behavior until your dog is raising its head high enough to give you eye contact, marking for eye contact each time.
That’s it! Simply repeat and generalize. The Up Down Game is a great initial pattern to teach your dog that eye contact makes the pattern happen again!
Quick tip: A target in front of your feet makes this game even easier for both you and your dog and allows you to bring the target with you into the real world as a cue to play the game!
Want to see how Sunday uses her Control Unleashed skills, specifically from the pattern game Give Me A Break, to manage her big feelings and voluntary recall to me from sheep?
Bonus tutorial for Ping Pong — a simple, fun skill to help you begin to build your CU recall skills!
This post first appeared on the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy blog in November, 2024.
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