How Can I Teach My Golden Retriever to Follow Me?

Benedict HM: How can I teach my Golden Retriever to follow me?
I am 13 and I have a golden retriever around 3 months old.. I went with him to this park once with a leech but all he does is bite the leech and i want him to follow me but he won't. He will just go wander off by himself.. I need help, please!

Answers and Views:

Answer by Nick
Keep him on the leash for a while. Tell him to heel when you want him to walk by your side. If he keeps biting his leash and then smacking his nose. Might seem to mean but it works. When he walks with you without biting the leash then you reward him with a treat or a pat on the belly.

After a few weeks or longer of this then he'll get used to walking by you when you say heel.

There are a lot of videos for dogs on youtube.

Also, it takes a lot of patience so don't get mad at him.

Answer by KIP
Just leave him on the lead for a while and let him get used to it. Take him to an area that has fences or somewhere he can't run off. While he is on the lead give him treats, then let go of the lead and give him treats. You need to get excited and happy so he plays with you, get a ball or a stick, and plays with that with him.

If you are really worried that he will run off the best thing to do is do what I said above but tie a really long rope on his collar so if he runs off too far you can step on the rope to stop him from going to far. Then when you step on it call him and show him the treat.

Do not hit him, or smack him on the nose, if you do end up damaging his nose it will cost you a lot of money. Also, he will never come back to you if you do, trust me I have been through it and it took me about 4 to 5 months for my dog to trust me to come to a recall.

Answer by 777dude
mount a juicy beef on your back

Answer by Roald K
Teaching a dog to follow closely is pretty easy. It does take some time to teach him tho.

You want to put some dog treats in your pocket (Be sure to pack plenty, and be sure the dog doesn't see you put them in or he will be too distracted to work ;)). Take the dog for a walk on the leash. Keep the lease short, but not tight, and the dog close to your side, take a treat in your closed hand but try not to let the dog notice.

Whenever the dog wanders off say "follow" (Or any other word you want as the command) and hold the closed hand in front of his nose. He'll smell the treat, and you ease your hand back closer to yourself and the dog will follow the hand. When he's at the right distance just say "Follow, good boy" and give him the treat. Repeat as often as necessary to teach the dog to just plainly walk by your side.

When the dog gets that the command follow means that he has to walk close by you, and he performs the "trick" every single time you give the command, you can then start teaching him that wandering off is bad when you've said follow.

You do that by giving the follow command, and when the dog starts wandering off just give a little tug on the leash (not hard) and say "No. Follow" and walk on. If he directly starts following again tell him he's a good boy and give him a pat on the head.

Be sure to always give the same command when the dog can stop following, like "Good boy, go now" so he can understand when the following is starting and when it ends.

Training this to a young dog as playful as a Golden Retriever will be tricky tho. Altho they are very helpful and willing to perform for the boss, Golden Retrievers are very playful and easily distracted when they are young. So this might take some time to teach. Good luck :)

And I agree with the person above me, do NOT hit your dog. Never hit a dog that isn't to be trained as a guard dog. Hitting dogs can make them untrusting and vicious towards humans. It's true that it might not seem to have a bad effect on a dog, especially on a Golden Retriever (As they are very friendly, calm dogs) but what you're effectively doing is saying: "Listen to me, I am higher in the chain of command because I can hurt you.".

To a dog, this is normal. It happens in packs of wild dogs too, they have a chain of command. If you want to rise up the chain, you need to challenge the person above you. For a dog, that means if he wants to rise in the chain of command, he needs to show people that he is stronger and can hurt them. That's a dangerous game, especially if the dog needs to be around children.

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