Mein Hund zerrt! My Dog pulls!

By Bina Lunzer

I had an extremely cool TAG session yesterday night. It was about teaching my loose leash protocol to handlers who started in a beginners' course today. I had doubts if I should do a TAG hour at all - I had one elderly lady, one person with severe health issues (spine problems, had several surgeries), some "serious" people in academics (e.g. PhD in Pharmacy) etc. --- and I could not imagine them playing "the dog". :-D In the end I gave it a try and it was a blast! 1.5 hours of laughing almost nonstop for all attendees - and they learnt SO MUCH. They said things like: "Bina, I did not realize that I pop the leash automatically every time I stop! This is awful, I am happy to know now." So they had very important self-reflections without feeling embarrassed - really wonderful. And the person with the spine problem was magically cured and even wanted to pretend to be the dog- four legged on the floor (which I do NOT ask from participants when playing "the dog"!!!!!), The elderly lady had to hold on to other people as she was laughing so hard she was afraid she would fall. We had a great time.

Today, the course started, and many said that they were happy to have the opportunity to hone their handling skills on humans and that they feel much safer now in the task with their dogs.

Great experience for me as a trainer.

The Tag Points

Bina has created several tag points to help teach students her loose leash walking approach. You will need to watch the videos to understand the process and the tag points. This teaching is done without the dogs present. Students work in pairs and take turns pretending to be the dog. Here are some of the tag  points:

The directions are: Before the click, hold hand still

          The tag point is: hand still 

 The directions are: After making eye contact, walk ahead

           The tag point is: walk ahead 

 The directions are: If the dog crosses the toe boundary, turn 90 degrees

           The tag point is: turn 90 degrees 

 The directions are: While redirecting the dog,

           The tag point is: look at hand 

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Purchase Bina's book (in German)

Mein Hund zerrt! Wie man einen Schlepplift im Wolfspelz in einen leinenführigen Hund verwandelt (Hilfe! Mein Hund...) [Kindle Edition]

Bina Lunzer (Autor), Lili Chin (Illustrator)

Video in German



Video in English

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