Walking off leash

[BeckiHutton]

I read a post before about peoples' chows being very good at walking off leash, so I decided to see what lily did yesterday. There is a nice flood park near us where people take their dogs out and I see lots off lead so I decided to just drop lily's to see what she would do..... Well. She ran right into the middle where it is verymuddy and got absolutely filthy and would not listen to me at all. I had to chase after her and ended up falling over and got caked myself I just wondered if anybody had any advice on how to train lily to be good off lead and to listen to me? Thanks

[Sarahloo]

My advice: Try to teach her to walk off leash, but don't be disappointed if like most Chows she'll never ever be able to do it ever!!!
For a Chow, there's always going to be something more exciting than coming back to mommy!
Get one of these (the longest are 26 feet)

flexi black.jpg (16.47 KiB) Viewed 4095 times

and just have fun together!

[Tippsy'smom]

Well, I can't give you any advice on teaching her to walk off leash... My girl takes off whenever she gets a chance, so she's ALWAYS on leash when she's outside.

My mix boy walks amazingly off leash, but I attribute that to the fact that he's part lab and wants to do everything to please me.

[BeckiHutton]

Thank you both for the replies. I really wish I could let lily off the lead it would be nice for her, but I will get her one of those extending leads instead

[Foxy's Master]

In my own experiences with ChowChows, the younger they are once you start walking them without a leash the better. When I first adopted Foxy she was glued to me, walking her in the evening when there are less people out the easier it was for her to pay attention to my commands. And now at the young age of 6 months I walking her without a leash in my neighborhood, she walk no father that 15-20 ft ahead of me and looks back often to make sure I am still there. And when she gets to a streetcrossing before me, in my firm man voice Foxy no sit and she sits or walks back towards me and wait til I get to the crossing.

[Tippsy'smom]

In my own experiences with ChowChows, the younger they are once you start walking them without a leash the better. When I first adopted Foxy she was glued to me, walking her in the evening when there are less people out the easier it was for her to pay attention to my commands. And now at the young age of 6 months I walking her without a leash in my neighborhood, she walk no father that 15-20 ft ahead of me and looks back often to make sure I am still there. And when she gets to a streetcrossing before me, in my firm man voice Foxy no sit and she sits or walks back towards me and wait til I get to the crossing.

I wouldn't let my dog get that far ahead of me walking ANY neighborhood. When I walk my mix boy through the neighborhood off leash he's been taught to stay in a heel position and will NOT leave it. Too many things could happen.

[Sarahloo]

When I first adopted Foxy she was glued to me

You see, that's simply not the case for most people here! It's not that difficult to walk a dog off-leash that is glued to you.
My Loo wants to hunt, race, smell, look for puddles, and only needs to still be able to see me. That's enough for him. I guess he is long-distance glued to me , which simply isn't good enough when it comes to walking off-leash.

[Tippsy'smom]

When I first adopted Foxy she was glued to me

You see, that's simply not the case for most people here! It's not that difficult to walk a dog off-leash that is glued to you.
My Loo wants to hunt, race, smell, look for puddles, and only needs to still be able to see me. That's enough for him. I guess he is long-distance glued to me , which simply isn't good enough when it comes to walking off-leash.

Tippsy doesn't even have to see me... She just goes and doesn't care, she'll come back when she's ready... Of course, I always go after her, but the few times she's gotten out and I didn't notice she was gone 'til I either got home and she was sitting on the driveway(My dad put her and our boxer out in the fenced yard and left for work and the boxer forced the padlocked gate open and they both got loose, Tippsy came back home, Animal control picked up Jazmine and we had to pick her up there) or she showed up barking at the front door(back at my grandpa's I HAD to leave her outside because his immune system was so weak from chemo that he couldn't have animals in the house at all, and she escaped her 20X20 ft pen and then escaped the fenced backyard... Dunno how THAT happened...Oh yeah, she's too smart for her own good sometimes), I've learned she comes back.

[Katjusa]

I don't think I'll be able to walk Shosha off leash ... I let her go sometimes in large fenced parks and she never goes far away. But it's a totally different situation if she sees another dog, a bird, cat ... I did manage to get her away from dogs a few times (I had a bunch of toys and treats on me) but I can never be sure. + she runs up to every dog to say hi. Last week she wanted to do it to a not-very-friendly-looking pitbull. I had her on flexi and pulled her back.

Oh, and there's a funny thing she does: if she's off leash and I call her to come to me, she starts running in my direction but she just keeps running and doesn't stop... It's like she'd think: "yay yay there you are and I'm coming! ... oh, well, youre not going anywhere, I might just look around now and keep running"
she was the only dog that did that in school.

I just don't trust myself and her enough to let her off leash in an unprotected area.

[Merlin]

I read a post before about peoples' chows being very good at walking off leash,

On the contrary, generally speaking chows are not good off leash candidates at all.
They have too strong a prey drive and are too independant in nature.
What you could consider doing is long lining your chow.
that would offer you quite a bit of freedom, but allow you to maintain a good amount of control.

[BeckiHutton]

I have recently got her an extending lead and she loves it, but she is just interested in sniffing around and chasing everything. Lol. She is what you would call a typical chow. I don't think I will ever be able to let her off properly. Mind you, I do take her and my son Alfie to the park regularly and if there is nobody else tuyere, which is most of the time, I will let her off.