Training Question: Not Sniffing While Walking

Ellie loves to sniff everything, and I don’t want to discourage her from using her nose (she’s a great tracker!), but it’s becoming a big problem on walks. If we walked at her pace, it would take ten minutes just to get from the front door to the sidewalk, and we live in an apartment complex! Plus, with her head down, she’s eating everything in sight: bugs, bird poo, leaves, trash, even some asphalt. I need to train her to walk with her head up, which I’m willing to invest the time to do, but I don’t want to hurt her throat in the process by putting too much pressure there.

I’ve trained using a training collar before, so I know how to use one properly. But that dog was much bigger, and I’m worried about accidentally hurting Ellie. Does anyone have tips for how to train Ellie to walk with her head up without harming her in the process?

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Permalink Reply by Linda on March 14, 2013 at 7:14pm

I assume you are using a metal training collar....get a show collar. It's non-metal and it is much easier to keep right up behind the ears keeping the lead straight up which tends to make them keep the head up. In obedience training when we had hunting/tracking dogs keeping their noses off the ground was always a challenge. The trainer would put a very small dad of Vicks just under their noses to break the scents on the ground. Not sure how well that actually worked....I was training sight hounds (wolfhounds).

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Permalink Reply by Heather & Ellie on March 14, 2013 at 8:18pm

I don't know why a show collar didn't occur to me. That's a really good suggestion.

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Permalink Reply by Linda on March 14, 2013 at 10:37pm

I don't know what made me think of it either. If you try it let me know if it works.

Max is a typical male, he loves to sniff when we walk but because of his neck problems I have to use a harness. He does wear a web collar for his tags tho.