Dear Frances: Should I Let My Fearful Dog Sniff on The Walk?
Dear Frances,
I’m confused about whether I should be letting my dog sniff the ground while on walks and if so, when? My fearful dog hates being on walks, because there’s humans out there, and it seems like I’m adding insult to injury by refusing him that freedom. I see trainers on Instagram correcting this behavior, especially with anxious dogs, and I’m not sure what to do. My dog seems to sniff sometimes just because he likes it, but sometimes it feels like he’s sniffing because he wants to avoid going further. What should I do?
Confused in the City
Confused in the City,
If you’re writing to me, I’m sure you’ve already heard the good news: a structured walk routine is one of the best things you can do for a nervous dog. When trained correctly it can increase handler engagement, teach better coping skills, create trust in the relationship, and reduce frustration in the dog. However, when the rules of the walk are loosey-goosey or not communicated fairly, it can encourage testing/negotiation, reinforce nervous behaviors, and reduce the believability of your leadership. The central component of a structured walk is a solid, reliable heel command.
What’s your heel position like? Do you find your dog walking relaxed and at your side or does he try to forge ahead and stay in front? Does the forging get worse when there are people around? How and where did you begin the process of training heel - in the busy street outside your apartment, or did you take your dog to a more low-key area? Has your dog lunged or attempted to bite strangers? If so, you need to consult with an in-person trainer and learn safe handling techniques. For the purposes of answering this question I’m going to assume that your dog has simply shown reactivity around strangers and (like you said) wants to create space.
Before we throw our dogs into situations that make them nervous, we must take care to ensure that the word “heel” means something very specific - “Walk at my side, at my pace, calmly.” Ideally, heel would have been trained in a low distraction environment (in your dog’s case, no people around) where the dog had a fair chance to learn the rules in a quiet setting. The distraction/challenge level would have escalated in a gradual fashion, along with the firmness of corrections.
Sniffing is Not a Bad Thing
Dogs sniff for many reasons. The reason I and other balanced trainers correct sniffing is not because we want to grudge our dogs the opportunity to sniff, or (as you said), add insult to injury. We correct sniffing on the walk for two very good reasons:
1. When dogs sniff, they also tend to pull, and pulling is dangerous.
2. When dogs sniff, they can’t be focused on you.
In short, we want the heel command (or the structured portion of the walk) to be about calm migration, connection, and leadership. Like many dog behaviors, sniffing is allowed in certain contexts and not others. I actually love for dogs to use their nose - they just can’t do it in heel.
Go Slower
If the expectations of heel have always been inconsistent (if you’ve always allowed him to sniff) then it would be worth it to do some remedial work to establish (or re-establish) the rules of the walk. Take him out to a less busy part of the city, if you can find one, or rent an AirBnB in the country for a weekend. City life is hard on dogs (and people), especially if your dog is nervous. Your dog needs a break from all that pressure every once in a while.
Once your dog has had a re-introduction to heel, be sure to advocate for him on the walk as you keep him in heel. This might include walking away from a trigger, body blocking (putting yourself between your dog and the triggers), or speeding up your pace to move more quickly past a trigger.
The goal of all this is to help him confront, and not continue to avoid, his fears. The end product is a calm and focused walk around people, with you leading the way, directing, and advocating for him when needed. Over time, and with consistency, a calm walk (one where he is not allowed to blow up or disengage) will give him increased confidence around the situation - IE, nothing bad happens to him. But in order to get from point A to point B, the rules of the walk probably need to be a little more binary than they have been.
Don’t Feel Guilty
Humans often shy away from enforcing rules with our dogs, even rules with good reasoning behind them, because we perceive hard boundaries as rigid. But in my experience, humans feel guilt based on faulty assumptions - in your case, the assumption is that your dog will feel insulted by being told not to sniff. My experience has been the opposite - the vast majority of nervous dogs actually experience boundaries as safe and predictable, and achieving clarity around expectations allows them to relax. You are not “adding insult to injury” by enforcing rules.
For the safety of both of you, it needs be very clear to who controls the navigation of the walk - who decides whether you turn left, right, or stop walking entirely. If you think about, this responsibility literally cannot be shared. In a walk wherein both parties are tied together with a rope, you cannot have two co-leaders without breaking apart. You are either going in the same direction at the same pace, or you are breaking apart.
I saw the importance of this concept the other day when I witnessed a toddler holding hands with her mother, leading her around the store. The mother was (lightly) pulling her towards the door, and explaining in a gentle tone how five minutes was up and it was really time to go now. The toddler, even though she was all of 30 pounds, was the leader in this context. I’m sure you’ve seen similar displays of this - some kids, if the boundary is not heartily perceived, will even fall to the ground to protest their limits. Some dogs would gladly lead their owners into traffic if it meant avoiding one of their triggers.
I use this example to show you that leadership does not automatically fall to the one who knows the most, is the strongest, or the most qualified for the job. Leadership falls to the one who wants it the most. Which brings me to my last point:
Clarity and Conviction
I hope that this post has cleared some things up for you, and given you insight into my thought process. However (this must be said) I don’t want you to correct your dog just because I, or other trainers on Instagram said so. The corrections will not “land” correctly if your energy is, for lack of a better word, weird. Any time we talk about sharing corrections with our dogs, it is important that we understand that corrections occur in context of a structured training lifestyle.
When I talk about a “structured training lifestyle,” I mean that your dog is a pro at taking direction from you in mundane contexts - around the house in particular. If you say “no” inside the house, does your dog know what you mean? When you say “down” or “place,” does your dog stay there, or break command as soon as the doorbell rings? Does your dog go in and out of a crate on command? If your dog is confused about the rules inside the house, then we can only expect the confusion to multiply in a context where he is nervous. You are the common denominator in both contexts - you can add to the confusion by being inconsistent, or you can create clarity by training commands fairly, and then adding consequences for bad choices.
I’m a big fan of using responsible corrections to communicate the concept of “no,” but if you’re only using corrections in one situation, and it happens to be the situation where your dog is the most nervous, you two are bound to struggle. Having “clarity and conviction” behind your communications means you need to 1) know WHY you’re correcting 2) trust that the correction will have a desired outcome and 3) feel confident about it. When YOU feel confident about leading your dog through the things that make him nervous, HE will feel more confident.
I hope this helps, and gives you some ideas to work with.
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