Adventure Walks

Obliterate boredom and activate your pup’s mind and muscles with an Adventure Walk.

An adventure walk is a great way to burn off extra energy, solidify obedience skills, soothe nervous dogs, improve your dog’s fitness, and strengthen your bond. Let ho-hum walks be a thing of the past. Different activities result in different benefits, and dogs love to learn and try new things.

Training during a walk is not just heelwork and basic commands. It can involve game playing that makes your dog think and respond. Engaging your dog leads to happier vet visits, calmer walks, easier nail trims, better manners, and less reactivity to triggers (cats, other dogs, delivery trucks, or loud noises). Our Adventure Walks services include:

Treasure Hunt

Build confidence in fearful dogs by showing them that the world is full of treasures. We toss a treat on the ground while your dog is distracted and tell your dog to “find it.” Then they sniff around and find the treat as a reward. This brings the dogs’ focus away from the distractions like other dogs, people, squirrels, or the delivery truck and back to the walker. Plus, sniffing relaxes them and finding hidden food is a mood booster.

Obstacle Course (Urban Agility/Parkour)

A detour from a straight line walk to a walk up and down stairs, weaving through poles, under a park bench, or around the perimeters of a play area. Urban agility helps prevent pulling on the leash, keeps a reactive dogs calm, gives him something to do on cue that will stop him from ping-ponging in front of you, and teaches a fearful dog that he can be safe and have fun outside the house. Builds body awareness, teaches new skills, and burns energy.

Red Light, Green Light

This attention training walk is a great way to polish behaviors and reward good manners. Using commands such as: Stop, Wait, Stay, Walk, Let’s go – at various times throughout the walk your dog tunes in to follows instructions and gets lots of praise and rewards. These skills are practiced before crossing streets and while staying out of the way to avoid close encounters with bicycle riders, skateboarders, joggers, and other moving obstacles. The mental energy and focus built from this exercise can be life changing while shaping a well-mannered pup.

Follow the Leader

This is a reminder for your dog that you are in charge. By simply changing the pace or direction of the walk your dog will keep listening to the leader. Just when the dog is ready to head where it thinks the walk is going, he is gently moved in a different direction, made to circle, or just pause for a moment. Dogs have to listen and be ready to respond to these cues at a moment’s notice and there are rewards and praise when they comply. Aside for improving attention, it builds heeling skills, focus, and bonding.

Freedom Walk

This leashed walk gives your dog the freedom to choose the way and plenty of time to sniff and explore on his terms. This adventure is especially great for shy and reactive dogs as it is a calming activity to decompress their anxieties and build confidence. We follow his lead to ensure his choices are safe.

The Rucksack Walk

This walk is done in short sessions and limited spaces. It starts with a mosey around on a long line, followed by triangle recalls, and a sit down. From the rucksack we present a novel gift for the dog to smell, treats, and a chew. It is a bonding exercise where the dog gets to enjoy and settle comfortably in the outdoors in a quiet space. There are no cell phone interruptions, loud noises or quick movements. This is great for puppies and dogs that are fearful, convalescing, newly adopted, or reactive. It’s meant to be stress-free opportunity for a dog to just “be” and adjust to life with humans.

The Tattler Walk

This session gives your dog a job to do. When the dog sees something that has caught his interest (a squirrel, cat, deer, other dog, or delivery person) he may stop, raise his hackles, lunge, bark, and try to get closer. To counter the negative behavior and to encourage his observations we teach him to look at us by rewarding his tattling with a treat, toy, or game. Tattle training serves as a preventive measure. Ultimately, your dog will alert to the distraction and then calmly turn to let you know that something is amiss or encroaching on you.

All of our walks are done using Fear Free techniques and are tailored to the dog we are walking. We consider age, breed, health, size and temperament. Walks are good at all ages and safety and fun are our primary goals.

Click here for Adventure Walk Rates.