Now Kuma was still helping me with walks at this time. We had a system.
Kuma, on walking leash
I would decide what direction we were to go in.
I would do my best not to trip or stumble. Kuma would provide the power for us to move forward.
I could walk a short distance by myself. With Kuma I could go farther.
When Balto was a little older I thought we should bring him along and see if he would learn our system.
My thinking was that with Kuma’s skills as an example, it should be easier to teach Balto than it was with Kuma when none of us knew what we were doing.
At first Balto came along on his own leash, “just for the ride” and so he could see what we were doing.
Remember, he was still a young pup.
Next we would train like this:
When approaching a right turn that all of us knew we were going to take, I would call the dog’s names, Kuma, Balto, and follow with the command “Gee”.
We would make the right turn (like we knew we would) and I would reinforce them with “good boys”.
For left turns I would do the same thing but call the command “Haw”.
Now Kuma was already very good at this and his example made it easy for Balto to learn our system.
Pretty soon Balto also knew the commands which meant that I could tell both of them which way we were going at any turn.
We trained like this for quite a while and all of us learned many things.
I’ll bet most people could train their dog like this if they wanted to.
Balto, with walking leash
I love these real dog stories! You have a very interesting system, and it was fun to read the history you have with it. And how neat that Kuma was able to help teach Balto the same system.
My dog is nine now and I trained her on basic commands when I adopted her five years ago. I wonder if I could teach her something like this!
Hi Samantha,
Thanks for stopping by! If your dog will already walk with you on a leash you have a good chance that she/he will learn this system. All you will have to do before a turn (ie) is call the dog’s name, say the command you’ve selected, and give a verbal reward/reinforcement after your command has been successfully accomplished. You expect success because you and your dog have already done this before and you are only adding the command. Deceptively simple and works great! It can also be the basis for remarkable performance and service from your dog, which this blog will gradually be revealing.
Best
Ken