How I Trained My Dog to Listen Off Leash

How important is it to you that your dog listen to you off leash when distracted in an uncontrolled environment? I’ll show you how we approach this type of training without the use of any physical punishments/corrections!

I've never read a book so fast! youtube.com/post/Ugkx1_veP7CApJK_GWy_TczaMciuG64Pq… Learning about his dogs and experiences was just the icing on the cake - bed this book through and through. We're working with our new pup and Brandon's advise was just what I needed. Wish he'd just come and train for me haha but it's good for us and happy to have this new set of tools to use on our pup.

So, I guess this is your response video to Dog Daddy after calling you out for leaving a comment in one of his videos. His comment was a little tongue and cheek. If you think his methods are wrong and abusive, please show pet parents the correct way. A better video would be going to a shelter and finding the most aggressive dog about to be euthanized and rehabilitating him. From what I gather, dog daddy is their last resort. Many owners tried positive training methods with little to no success. He deals with 1000s of extremely fearful and aggressive dogs, and the results speak for themselves. The only people who ever criticize him are trainers and dog behaviorist, never the clients

I would be curious to see how your dog generalizes the frisbee training “stay” to other situations like you mentioned chasing a car, or even more so a rabbit or squirrel near a busy street away from you during an unexpected event that triggers her prey drive in a different sight picture. I think that getting the dog to stay during frisbee just becomes part of “the game” but when you are not in the context of the same game, it will become a much truer testament to your demonstration. It may give owners a false sense of confidence if they are able to teach their dog this same game of stay to realize severe consequences in the time an emergency stay or recall is needed and the dog chooses not to listen

Love this video and this is the best video I've ever seen!😂🎉 Best Ally

I’m sure with positive reinforcement we can teach anything to a puppy, but not many dog breeds can do what a BC does, they’re smarter than a lot of dog trainers out there! 😂 Inertia could learn way more than heel or fetching a frisbee. Border Collies are amazing dogs! They thrive working.

Not gonna lie, Inertia stopping and not pursuing the frisbee is still stupidly impressive to me. I have always known you are a great trainer but seeing these advanced steps in action was amazing. Keep fighting the good fight!!

My brother used the same method. Such a much better way to train a dog, with respect to their nature and understanding of their needs while having expectations.

We’ve had tried many methods from a few popular YouTube trainers. Yours is totally working with our BC. We are so happy and relieved. Going out now is so much fun and it’s so beautiful to watch our Junies progress 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Bless you Zak 🙏🏼

Hi zack, I love all you're videos It's perfect❤🎉 Best Ally

Hey Zak! love this video, would you mind going into more detail on the heel and stay commands and the process through training off leash and when is right to let them off and that kinda process?

Hi Zak,I have 1 ys old dog. When I take him out he is not interested in treats. How can I train him if he don’t like anything except barking

Your dogs are so lucky to have you as a responsible owner. Your dogs have had their confidence brought forward. And they have a willingness to please without fear or confusion. Wish the rest of the world was that easy. As a professional dog groomer, i use the gentlest methods of training. And 98% of the time, it works very well... However, every so often, some absolutely spolied monster comes along and is dangerous not only to me but to themselves as well. That's when i have to break out the power steering and attention-grabbing techniques.

I always learn something from your videos. You'll get a chuckle to know that since I don't have a dog, I have used your methods to train my 13 year old cat to come and sit. She is a shelter adoptee with PTSD, so positive reinforcement is the only option for her. p.s. - Victoria is becoming such a gorgeous girl!

Nice info here Hawkeye! We have a 6+ month old puppy who gets easily distracted (and afraid) so we're going to put this into practice!

My 5mo Ozzy loves his snuffle mat and his puzzle. Toys oh we have so many toys and his own basket for them, he loves to dig into the toy basket. We started off leash training at home in our partially fenced in yard.

Thank you for your content and for always advocating for our pups

I started some time ago thinking of my dog as a two year old. Everything changed after that. I stopped having expectations of her and started understanding that she’s really only doing the best she can. All frustrations have vanished from my training. My dog has taught me to be far calmer person in everything I do. You can get the absolute best out of you dog with zero force.

I’ve been training my first ever dog, a shiba inu on top of it, with the help of your videos. They are great, he learned everything so fast! I still struggle with come in distracted environments. I am hoping that one day I’ll be able to trust him off leash. He’s currently 9 months old. I also read your books! I hope that one day my dog and I will be able to meet you guys!! If ever you come to Montreal let me know 😊

Keep in mind not all balanced trainers or advocates think you cannot train dogs. I have a crazy dog reactive pit/gsd/rott mix and have watched all videos on your series featuring George and Moira. There is a lot of good information regarding positive reinforcement in those videos and I have definitely implemented several of your techniques. Having said that, I have kept an open mind and have read and watched videos from other balanced trainers and have found some of their techniques equally helpful. This does not mean that my dog is being tortured or harmed in any way and I have found he has learned a lot by using a combination of positive but with corrections such as a verbal "no" and a leash tug (martingale, slip, or prong depending on situation). We are 5 months into training our dog and have seen a lot of slow but steady improvement. When we first got him, he would react to a dog 100 yards away. With our trainer, we have him within 20-30 yards away from another dog with less reactivity but he is very inconsistent. Again, we are using mostly positive in our training with some corrections. Keep in mind also that my dog is NEVER corrected for reacting and NEVER for a behavior or command he does not already understand. When he reacts, its a 180 and a reset, then try again trying to keep him under threshold then lots of engage/disengage, give space, and praise. This is what most balanced trainers do. We decided to use a prong collar because controlling a reactive 70 lb pit mix with crazy drive, that is lunging, spinning, and out of his mind did not respond to a harness, martingale, slip, treats alone, toys, redirection, or anything. He still reacts on the prong but he is much easier to control and reset so he can learn. I can assure you it is not destroying our relationship and if anything it has only grown. To be fair, there are many trainers that call themselves "balanced" but are anything but. We experienced this with our first trainer who was a "yank and crank" on a slip lead guy that thought having my reactive dog 10 feet from other barking dogs while mine was going ballistic with the trainer yanking him so hard my dog was gagging was going to fix my dog. That was awful to watch and we never went back to him again. These are the trainers we all need to be calling out. Abuse and poor training techniques are very obvious when you see and experience it. As many have stated it is not the tool that is the problem, it is the trainer that is the problem. I am sure you will just come back and cite "the Science says..." argument but remember science is almost NEVER truly objective and contains the biases of those conducting the studies. Further just because you have "evidence", how do you know you have ENOUGH evidence to support the claims behind these studies you keep citing? I think the bear example is ridiculous in this argument and you stated in a response it was 4 of 8 bears that were under positive reinforcement training successfully and that there were no follow-up studies. Is this just confirmation bias then? Is it possible that those conducting those studies injected their ethical and political biases into the studies you keep citing? In my opinion there are NO absolutes in life (well, taxes and death I guess) so to say aversives are NEVER necessary in ANY situation just does not sit well with me. It does not seem logical. Anyways... I don't think you are a bad trainer and I think you have a lot to offer in terms of positive reinforcement training. I hope you continue to focus on that and chill on the use of aversives as it is becoming to look really arrogant on your part. I certainly do not claim to know everything and I continually make mistakes and I think that holds true for all of us. We should all take a step back and realize we have a lot more in common that many think. Oh, I did watch the video and I think Inertia is doing great and you have done a good job with her.