Leashes Prevent Leadership

Leashes prevent leadership. This is not a blog advocating for just abandoning leashes. So discard that notion now.

There are two events I’d like to discuss: The first, I was walking Rollo in the dark around a park, something caused him to stop dead in his tracks and refuse to move. After a few seconds I caught sight of what it was, something highly reflective on the ground across the road. Perhaps 30 to 40 metres away. There’s a video of this on our YouTube channel, you can hear me giggling in disbelief as I spot what it is. Rollo has essentially gone into a fear response, his brain is trying to figure out which of fight or flight are required, or, if he could be indifferent to it. For this he looks at me to gauge my reaction. This is Rollo looking to me for leadership. The problem is I’m attached to him by a 2m rope, a leash. Unfortunately there’s a reasonably busy road between the object and us.

By planting his feet and refusing to move, I’m left with only a few options; 1) drag Rollo along by his leash because he’s being silly and irrational, or, 2) cajole him along one inch at a time until we get to the object, or, 3) I put the leash down and go over to the object and show him that there’s nothing to be scared about. No 3 is the correct thing to do, however, I ruled out No 3 due to the busy road. I am not going to drag Rollo by the leash, that’s not fair at all, and would create active distrust in me. So No 1 is out too. No 2 it is.

The problem with this, as you’ll see in the video is that it takes a long time as the distance to the object has to be closed for me to get anywhere near it, whilst Rollo is not comfortable moving toward it, this means that I am not offering him any assurance in the harmlessness of the object because I’m not going toward it, I’m staying with him trying to encourage him to move toward it with me – in Rollo’s head I am more interested in keeping him close to me and trying to push against his fears than in demonstrating the required leadership and going over to the object and showing him it’s harmless and letting him come to me based on trust.

So No 2 sits in some weird halfway, non-leadership, but ahead of Rollo trying to say it’s ok to go toward the scary thing, but I don’t want to be apart from you, but come on its not scary, mess of a situation. The road scuppered my route to the required solution (No 3), but it was during this moment that I realised that holding onto that leash was preventing me from demonstrating what Rollo needed me to for him to overcome the fear – leadership. He was asking me to show him that it was ok, by demonstrating that it was ok. Not by talking at him in a nice voice.

The second incident was in my town centre on a Friday evening, I usually walk Rollo there as I like to keep up his indifference to areas busy with people all around. It’s certainly something that has to be worked at, it doesn’t come easily to guardian breeds. Anyhow, Rollo decided he didn’t want to go into town, he wanted to go to the park again, so after looking at me a lot to communicate this, and refusing to move, in a huff he lay down in the pathway and refused to move.

Wonderful. The deal is, he gets the park, after we walk through the town. Sometimes I allow him to choose the park first. On this occasion he’d been in the park first and didn’t want to go into town, no deal from my perspective – and yes that means I’m punishing him, I know.

We were attached by the 2m leash. It occurred to me that unless I’m prepared to put this leash down and walk off, or drag him along using it, Rollo is in control of this situation, and he knows it. He is offering me a test, it’s twofold; am I a tyrant or a leader, and, does Rollo have much say in what we are doing? It was so immensely tempting to just drag him by the leash. I really can feel that inside me as the annoyance at his laying down builds up. I did wait him out, but in all honesty I wasn’t far off capitulating and dragging him up, 30 seconds perhaps.

So the next week I cheat, I take him to the same place but on the 20m long line. Oddly enough, Rollo does the same thing in the same place, he lays down, doesn’t want to go into town. So I walk off and unfurl the leash as I go, don’t even look back until I feel him move through the long line. I got to about 6m away before he’s up and jogging to catch up to me. Why did he move? I showed him leadership, even in doing something he doesn’t particularly want to, he would rather follow me and be with me than not.

The short leash prevented leadership. It prevented us communicating via our bond. I basically stood there begging Rollo to come with me whilst resisting dragging him along, all the while he can read my conflicted emotions like a book. He knows what I’m feeling, intimately. Now, I could have put the 2m leash down and walked off, I’ll admit that in my town centre that still scares me, and would probably scare joe public even more as Rollo shoots up and jogs to catch me, dragging a leash along with him, so I don’t think that’s a great idea, but the point stands, leashes prevent leadership and tempt you to beg your dog to come with you, or worse, be a tyrant to your dog through force. Our dogs need leaders to follow, not beggars or tyrants, that is the crucial part of the healthy human canine relationship.