How to maintain loose-leash walking after board and train

Use the equipment from the go-home lesson and nothing else: a well-fitted harness or flat collar and a standard leash. Dogtown's training is force-free, so there is no prong, choke or shock collar to go back to, and a retractable leash undoes the lesson because tension is what makes it pay out. Recheck the harness fit every few weeks, since an adolescent keeps growing and a winter coat under the straps changes the fit. The long line stays for recall work.

Agree the rules with everyone who walks the dog. Which side it walks on, what happens when the leash goes tight, the word that starts a sniff break and where the reward lands should be identical for every walker. The stakes are not only about manners. A CDC review of emergency-room data found that 21.2 percent of fall injuries involving dogs came from being pushed or pulled by the dog, and that 26 percent happened while people were walking them.

A pulling walk now and then means nothing. Three in a row is a pattern, and it usually has a cause you can find. Start with the route: a new street, a busier hour or a change of season, such as spring smells or summer visitors crowding the sidewalks of Gloucester and Rockport, makes the same walk harder. Then the rewards: has the pay rate quietly dropped? Then the gear: a loose harness or a longer leash changes what the dog feels. Fix the first thing you find before changing anything else.

Last, check the people. If a dog walker, a teenager or a partner lets the dog tow them to the lamppost now and then, pulling still pays sometimes, and that keeps it alive. Give every walker the same rules, including ours if you use Dogtown's at-home walks: solo walks of 20, 30 or 60 minutes with Dogtown staff for $25, $35 or $55, where availability depends on the address. Ask us whether we cover yours, and pass on your cue words.

Pulling toward a smell is a manners problem. Pulling toward another dog and then barking, lunging or raising hackles is leash reactivity, and it needs its own plan; Calm & Connected is written for adolescents, rescues and adults with minor leash reactivity, in 4, 6 or 8 weeks. Pulling away from traffic or noise is fear, and confidence comes before leash skills. Tell us which you are seeing when you message the front desk through the Dogtown app.

If the slip check above has run for two weeks without improvement, a private session, from $94, lets a trainer watch the leash, the reward timing and the route. One self-test helps in the meantime: the AKC Canine Good Citizen walking item asks for a right turn, a left turn, an about turn and stops, allows an occasional tight leash, and bars retractable leashes. Our board and train page shows how both programs teach leash skills.