How can I calm my dog down while crossing the street?

Question

My three-month old miniature poodle has a problem when crossing the street on a lead with me - she constantly jumps around excitedly in front of me, trying to play with me. This is something she doesn't do regularly on the sidewalk. I believe that I accidentally trained her to do this earlier: the first few times I crossed the street with her I encouraged her to run across the street (I thought this would teach her to cross quickly without stopping), so now she thinks of it as exciting and playtime.

Now that I've realized my mistake, how can I teach her to cross the street quickly but calmly?

In case it is relevant, she is still learning the basics (sit, stand, down, etc) but she is a quick learner.

Answer 1

I do not have my own dog, but spend a lot of time with the dog of my husband's parents.

I would do two steps:

First is to reward her for reaching the other side of the street. This would encourage her to get there rigorously and without wasting any time. But you have to make sure that she is not running to get the reward as quickly as she could.

Second goal would be the behavior at the street. Maybe you could find a street that is not frequently used by cars. Then you start to cross the street, but if she is jumping or doing anything she should not be doing on the street, you turn and go back. She gets no reward because you have not reached the other side, so she will find out that she could only get the reward on the other side, if she goes calmly and quickly with you to the other side. (Do not forget to change the sides, so she finds out it works on the way from left to right side and back from right to left, too.)

If you train her the basics, you have the experience about how long you could work with her and what attempts of her you could reward, as steps between, until you reach all the training goals.