If you are like most people, you take your dog for a walk for exercise or for a potty break. Surprisingly, one of the questions I get asked frequently is when and how I walk my dogs. There are five main reasons I walk my dogs, and the walking is always intentional. Those reasons are for elimination (toilet breaks), relationship building, to give my dogs a chance to sniff (read the pee mail), exercise, and sometimes to socialize.
In the episode you'll hear:
- The types of walks I take with my dogs.
- How I walk my dogs, and when I choose off-leash or on a leash.
- About Tater’s LOVE of people and what that means when walking him.
- The reasons I am cautious and intentional when walking in new places.
- Why I am always on alert when walking my dogs on leash in a city.
- What I do to keep my dogs safe when walking in new places.
- When and why I use a head halter, a harness or a flat collar.
- About how I start when walking the dogs at home.
- The games I play on walks with my puppy for relationship building.
- About letting dogs scent on walks and sniffing to read the pee mail.
- What I do when my dogs don’t come when called.
- How Tater, Momentum and This! love to use their noses.
- What I do to be intentional about my dogs sniffing on walks.
Resources:
- Podcast Episode 48: Potty Train Your Puppy in a Week (Easy 3 Step Process)
- YouTube Video: Susan Garrett’s Perch Work Dog Tricks (Pivots and Spins)
- Podcast Episode 40: Using a Head Halter on a Dog, Why My Approach is so Different
- Podcast Episode 16: The Thing Before Your Dog’s Thing
- Podcast Episode 11: The Power of Permission in Dog Training
- Recallers
- Podcast Episode 73: Why Your Dog Is Still Pulling on Leash and How To Fix It
- Podcast Episode 53: Stop Your Dog Pulling on Leash and Start Walking Together
- Podcast Episode 29: Understanding and Preventing Reactivity and Aggression in Your Dog
- Watch this Episode of Shaped by Dog on YouTube

Episode Transcript
Hi Susan,
I have been enjoying your podcasts and want to Thank you for taking the time to do them.
My youngest Border Collie has a lot of eye and this is new to me (my other BCs didn’t have as much eye) I would love to hear you do a podcast on how you handle the training struggles that comes along with training a sticky dog. The struggle is real with vulture sits and training contacts.
Thank you,
Debbie
Thanks! Lots to work on here😊🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪