Look both ways before crossing the street

[dennygirl]

Hello there!
Just wandering how you would teach your dog to stop and look both ways before crossing the street? Also wandering how to teach your dog to heel via clicker training?
Regards,
Dennygirl:dogtongue2:

 

[Jean Cote]

Hehehe... You are supposed to look both sides of the street, not your dog. :dogsmile:

You can teach him to sit by your side every time you have to cross the street, so that it will become an habitual patern and if you do it over and over he will do it anytime you stop.

To teach him to heel using clicker training, is to click & treat any time your dog is in the proper position. You can put a treat in your left hand to start, to sort of lure him into the right position, click & treat while you are walking. Always feed with your left hand and beside you.

If your dog gets distracted, start walking faster or call his name, and play with him, you want heeling to be a fun experience, since he has to focus on you and ignore everything else.

 

[l_l_a]

I don't think you can teach a dog to know how to cross the street by himself, but you can get him used to sitting and waiting (with you of course!) on street corners rather than eagerly pulling you forward into the road.

 

[dennygirl]

Crossin the road

Hehehe... You are supposed to look both sides of the street, not your dog. :dogsmile:

lol! thanks for the great advice

regards,
Dennygirl

p.s love the website :dogbiggrin:

 

[l_l_a]

your question made me think though, what about Guide Dogs for the blind, how do they lead their blind owners across the streets? are they trained to watch for cars and make decisions, or are they trained to go to street corners and watch the traffic lights for the "Walking" and "Do Not Walk" signs? does anyone here know?

 

[Jean Cote]

Q. Can the dog really read street lights?

A. No. Guide dogs are trained to stop at kerbs and wait quietly while their handler listens to traffic. When the handler decides it is safe to cross, he or she will command the dog to go forward. The dog is trained to disobey that order if it sees a car heading in their direction that the handler may have missed hearing.

 

[CollieMan]

No. Guide dogs are trained to stop at kerbs and wait quietly while their handler listens to traffic.

Something that I have done with Ellie since her first ever walk. Now she will automatically stop and sit at curbs until told otherwise. If cars are coming, I say "No, busy".

 

[storm22]

i taught my dog at every curb to stop,
and also sit from far away incase a car is coming out of a drive way i quite often have him on a long lunge lead (27ft i think) also another big on is if he here a car coming and were on the road side (i run him next to horses so its on country roads) he will sit till its past sometimes he lays down when trucks go past as he dont like the viberations

 

[dennygirl]

A little more like this

Actually, i was hoping to teach my dog to do this rather than just sit at the curb when i told him to.

Taken from: http://users.tkk.fi/~mtt/belg_tricks.html#useful

(Jenny Cole invented a trick which is both fun and useful Teach your dog to stop and look before crossing a road. You can first teach your dog the directions ("look right" and "look left"), and then combine the commands to sit and to look right-left-right (remember that Jenny lives in Britain, continental European dogs will have to learn to look left-right-left!) before given the permission to cross. (Jenny uses the command "Any cars coming?" for the entire trick). If you are consistent with your training, you can possibly condition your dog not to start crossing the road as long as he sees cars approaching, which would make this trick also extremely useful.

Any tips on how to?:dogblink:

 

[xsara]

I wouldn't teach this to my dog because I don't want her to cross the street on her own, but that's just me. We sit on every curb and wait until I think it's safe. But I don't see any reason why you couldn't teach this to your dog if you want to.
About the heel question - another thing you can do if the dog gets distracted is to change directions more often. Don't just walk in straight lines - turn around, jump up and down, walk backwards, be creative and fun. If you make a lot of turns the dog will have to follow you. Just make sure he is in the correct position before you click.

 

[Jean Cote]

I haven't done this myself, but in theory it should be:

Train the look left & right behavior at home, before doing it outside at a curb.

If your dog can already sit next to you you can wait until your dog looks to the left and click & treat.

Then eventually you can wait for a look on the left, followed with a straight look. Click & treat.

Then wait for a look to the left, and to the right. (Click & treat)

But I hope you do know that he is not looking for cars, but rather because you are conditioning him to.

P.S. A little caution on teaching this however. You will be reinforcing your dog for looking away from you, which is not necessarily what you want unless your dog has a strong relationship with you and isn't doing puppy burns (running away) from you.

 

[storm22]

i didnt really notice till reading this the other day, but as we get up to the curb and sit i look both ways but for some reason i looked down to see storm looking both ways by himself i suppose he was just looking around to see any dogs or people he could go say hi to, but he does it quite often (im looking at him more now) when we get to a roadside it made me laugh and ill have to re-enforce it when i see him do it cause it would be quite funny and good to show my young cousins how to cross the road with storm showing them (they learn alot copying the dog some good some bad)

 

[sassybrat]

aww that's cute! I always make Sophie sit at the street corners before we cross I haven't noticed if she looks both ways lol ...but Thats Great good for Storm !

 

[drivingtenacity]

I'm not sure how helpful this is, but when I was teaching Zena 'stop', I'd say stop and I'd stand still. At first, she'd try to walk on, but she realized pretty quickly that she wasn't going anywhere, and when she'd finally stop pulling herself forward, I'd tell her how good she was, wait a second, and then we'd cross if it was safe. I also used a sterner than normal tone for the 'stop' command, so she'd know how serious it was. She mastered the stop by our third walk together.

 

[josiebell]

this is the one thing that Duke excells at. We always stop at the kerb and he sits. I always wait at least a couple of seconds before I tell him OK even if the road is clear.

I do sometimes get frustrated when I've made him sit and wait and a car then stops to let us cross! I know, I know, its nice and good mannered but hey! we're training here hehe.

 

[leema]

Mac sees the curb as a natural barrier. I don't know how I taught him this. Clover is awfully reckless and I just ask for a sit everytime we reach the curb. My hope is that Clover will begin to think she has to 'do something' before corssing the road, and so won't without my blessing. Also, when we're walking, I don't let her step onto the road. We actually had to work on this because she likes to move backwards and forward on lead, and it took some time for her to realise NOT to step off the curb.