5-month-old Toy Poodle completely loses her mind outside — how do I teach calm leash walking?
I’ve been trying to train my 5-month-old Toy Poodle to walk calmly on a leash for weeks now, but every day feels exactly the same. At home, she listens to me so well, but the second we step outside, it’s like she completely forgets I exist. She just wants to sprint around and pull in every direction.
She’s also not very food motivated, which makes things even harder. Today I honestly reached my breaking point. I was trying the “freeze when they pull” method, but she started running and jumping around like crazy. For the first time ever, she even barked really loudly. She completely ignored me calling her name and didn’t care about the treats at all.
She also wants to jump toward basically every person we pass because she absolutely loves people. Obviously, not everyone likes dogs or wants a dog jumping on them, so I really want to work on this too.
Today was especially embarrassing because she was barking, jumping and running around, and I felt like I had absolutely no control over her. I eventually took her somewhere very quiet with no one around, thinking maybe she was just overwhelmed by people, but she behaved pretty much the same way there, maybe even worse.
I genuinely don’t know what I’m doing wrong at this point. Is this normal for a 5-month-old puppy? How did you teach your puppies to walk calmly on a leash when they were this age, especially if they weren’t food motivated?
I’d really appreciate any advice because I’m feeling pretty lost right now.
Posted Aug 18, 2026, 12:10 PM UTC