Going rogue: one dog walk at a time

There is only one good way to walk a dog on a leash: The dog has to stay on the side of the human, at all times, with a loose leash, looking faithfully to the owner, and only when the human gives permission, can the dog go and do anything else. Sometimes he gets to run off leash, but the human decides when, where, and for how long. Then it’s back to walking by the side. That’s how you walk a dog! A beautiful heel! A nice loose leash! A relaxed contemplative walk (for the human)! This is the mainstream Church of Dog Walking.

There are reformed religions that modify the basic parameters slightly, and in favour of the dog. For example, the Church of Side Agnosticism where it does not matter on which side the dog walks, left or right, it’s fine. Then the Reformed Loose Leash Church — loose leash, yes, but the dog does not have to stay on the side, the dog can go in front or behind, as long as the leash is not tight. People and dogs train Loose Leash Walking like there is no tomorrow, and if they fail, it’s very shameful.

But even when the basic tenets of the dog walk are reformed, the human still sets the pace, the direction, the where, when, and what. The Church promotes circular walks, or linear walks, with a clear goal, no randomness, no arbitrary changes. The Church is in favour of walking on trails, in a straight line, following a logical path, keeping a more or less constant pace. These are all the human’s choices. It’s my walk, after all, says the human. My walk! Not yours! I’m in control, not the dog. I’m making the decisions, says the human in the Church of Dog Walking. The dog gets to go along, following a set of rules designed to make the human feel good. This seems to be the underlying dogma of the Church of Dog Walking.

In theory at least. In practise, the entire religion seems to make the participants unhappy, both dogs and humans, a lot of the time. There may be humans, or even dogs, that like being part of the Church. There may be humans that manage to train their dogs to follow the strange rules of their religion. There are, after all, all kinds of humans and dogs. But often, it seems, at least one of the participants can’t be too happy. Either the dog, because she can’t get what she wants. Or the human, because he can’t make the dog go along with the rules. People try to escape from the Church, which leads to the Sect of the Flexiline, and the delusion of Off Leash Walks Without Distractions, splinters of the Church, inner emigration. Frustration, resignation, and misery is the general result. And that’s a shame, because a good dog walk is like a prayer, a transcendent exercise, a communication with a different form of existence.

But to get there, we first have to acknowledge that dogs and humans are not made to walk with each other. What humans usually call a ‘walk’, is mindnumbingly boring to dogs. Humans walk from A to B, with a goal, and a plan. Also, they walk. When they run, they call it a run, and that’s done separately. (How crazy is that?) Sometimes they insist on doing something else while being on a walk, like, talking to others, ignoring their environment entirely. (We are weird, okay.) Put a normal dog on a secure field of grass, with a path, but also with lots of smells, things, bushes, and just watch. Watch what happens. The dog is not going to walk in a straight line through the field. The dog is not going to ignore the surroundings. Instead it’s going to be stop and go, nose on the ground, ears in the air, the pace constantly adjusting to the stream of information that the dog is trying to process. It’s not going to be a logical loop. The dog will loop back to places that were most interesting. Emotions and reactions follow from the environment. For the dog, a good walk is unpredictable, determined by the quality and quantity of events that happen on the way.

It is almost impossible to achieve this state of mind within the Church of Dog Walking, unless you unleash your dog. But what if that’s not possible, or only possible in very specific areas. What if the dog can’t be trusted. Most dogs can’t be trusted off leash. A reliable, rock solid recall is very hard to get. With the Church, there is no way to compromise, no way to achieve the chaos and creativity of a good dog walk. Instead, you get leash corrections, prong collars, and haltis, with other word violence, the cruel toolbox needed to enforce the rules of the Church. The ends justify the means, if you are in the Church.

And that’s why I left the Church, first gradually, but then entirely. My dog is almost never off leash, but he is also rarely confined to the two square metres directly adjacent to me. I don’t set the rules, I just provide a framework, to keep us and others safe. Within that loose framework, the dog has agency and can make decisions. We almost never use a traditional six foot leash, the kind of leash the Church prescribes. We have entirely abandoned collars. I don’t want to pull on a collar anymore. There are, still, obviously, occasions where the place next to me is the only place that is safe, and for those moments we use rules that are reminiscent of the tenets of the Church. We train Heel, and Walk With Me, and Sit, and all that. But these are moments, situations. We understand that this is only a short break from the real walk. The one that actually matters.

It takes a while to find the right tools to go it alone, without the broad support of the Church, once the short leash and the collar and the headhalter are gone. A everyday harness for the dog that is safe and comfortable and easy to put on. Another harness for the human, to attach the other end of the leash. This can be a waist belt, but I often just use a short rope around my upper body. The beautiful 11 foot bungee line that is now our first choice whenever we are in a new environment and don’t quite know what to expect. Various other long lines, up to the 30 foot biothane line that we use every day, whenever there is room to explore.

(Long lines are not common in dog walking. They are usually introduced for training purposes, or for specialists, like sled dogs, or tracking dogs. There are standard protocols for recall training that involve a long line. They are used as tethers of course. But I almost never meet people who actually walk their dogs on an actual long line, and that’s just sad.)

Building skills is even more important. Instead of insisting on a constant pace, which is always going to be too slow for my dog, I trained myself to adapt my pace, to switch from a contemplative amble to a fast walk to a light jog, and, very briefly, to sprinting, in constant communication with the dog. Long line handling is an art in itself, a skill I learned by watching others, and by making a mess. One hand is the coil hand, which holds the coiled up part of the leash. The other is the signal hand which controls the loose part of the leash. Learning how to avoid tangles, how to not step on the line, and how to step out of loops. This is something the dog has to learn as well. Taking up slack seamlessly, with one hand. Paying out line without thinking. Avoiding jerks. Braking gently, before the end of the line is reached. Steering and directing with subtle leash pressure and body language and cues and the occasional treat. Cues like ‘wait’, ‘slow’, ‘left’, ‘right’, ’keep going’, ‘stop’ are way more important than ‘heel’. We train specific cues like ‘enough’ to indicate that there will soon be leash pressure if the dog keeps going at that pace. But also ‘hey, hey, hey’, in case the dog takes off without asking. These are reminders, ways to direct the dog towards the human, invisible corrections. There is subtlety and beauty in the leash techniques outside the Church. The leash becomes a way to communicate, to negotiate.

We borrow techniques and tools from climbing, from mountaineering, and from sailing. My harness is a modified climbing harness without the leg loops. I use carabiners that can hold a fall of a human in an emergency — or a running dog. Leash walking is not that different from belaying the dog. The goal is to never have a tight leash, to move around fluently, to give ourselves the maximum amount of freedom that is possible in the circumstances, and yet to remain safe. Constantly watching the environment is key, watching the dog is important, too, monitoring ear position, facial expression, posture, tension. I do the same with me, by the way. If I’m not relaxed, I can’t ask my dog to be relaxed. I take for granted that the dog also monitors the environment and my body language. It takes a long time to figure this out, and to embrace the randomness, the joy, and the chaos of dog walking. When everything goes right, it’s a fluent, immersive, deep flow, interrupted only by the occasional squirrel. It’s a process, a process, with a lot of trial and error, where we explore, evaluate, and elaborate. The dog and I. Finding a consensus, something that works for both of us. Because, obviously, this is OUR walk.

There is a scene in the movie “Moneyball”, in which Billy Beane is jogging through the baseball field, slowly, controlled, in twilight, the hood deep over the head. It’s a scene like a hinge, the last one before the long winning streak begins, the streak which would make him famous. A moment earlier he is talking to his players, “it’s a process, it’s a process”. It’s a scene like a jumpboard, from knowing how to do it, to doing it. For some reason this is exactly how I feel when I go outside to walk my dog in the evening. The first two hundred metres to the street, the hood over the head, the dog in front of me, on the line, finding our way. It’s a process, it’s a process. It’s one of the few scenes in the movie where Beane is not eating anything.