pulling on the leash

[Cody's Mom]

Our dog Cody pulls on the leash alot. We took a puppy training class and they told us to turn quick and he'll whip around with us. Everytime we take walks and he pulls I do exactly that but he keeps pulling harder. Got any suggestionsto make him stop? By the way, he is only 6 months old so he still has alot of energy!

[Bordercentrics]

Our Ruby is now 17 months old and she still wants to pull, but she's much better than she was! What worked for us is:

 

1. Use a harness at first - not a "no pull" harness, just a regular one. The pressure on the chest seems to calm Ruby down, compared to her collar. We are now transitioning back to the flat collar.

 

2. The hardest thing is to enforce a consistent rule - the dog does not move forward when the leash is tight. This means very short walks at first, so you have to be very patient and be willing to wait out the dog. Eventually he will learn that to get the reward of walking, the leash has to be loose. Until he does learn, you will stand more than walk. I sometimes want to bring a paperback to read while I wait...

[Tassie]

I was at a Pat Miller conference recently - she was recommending the front clip harnesses. I can't remember the relatively new one she was particularly mentioning - but here's a link that will give you the idea front clip harness

Her argument was that these harness make good use of the dog's forward momentum to actually turn his body back to you without harming anyone.

 

Front clip harness and head-halters are only designed to be an interim solution so the dog can actually get walked relatively comfortably while loose-leash walking is being trained.

 

What Bordercentrics suggests is good - stopping until the leash goes loose, then reinforce the loose leash, then move forward again. No comment from you on the tight lead, no prompting the dog to turn back - wait till the dog turns back of his own accord, and as the leash slackens, party with him. (If you use a clicker in your training, you would probably click and treat the head turn first, or maybe the moment the leash goes slack.

 

If the standing still bit gets boring, you can try a 180 turn - again, no comment to the dog - but be ready to really party with him as the leash goes slack.

 

Another thing that helps is what I call 'doodling' - you might want to try this in your yard first, as it might seem a bit mad in the street. You just wander round aimlessly - any time the dog starts to tighten the leash, say nothing, but change direction and keep walking, but also change direction randomly even if the dog isn't pulling. Key to this method is really paying attention to the dog, and rewarding the instant the dog acknowledges you and slackens the leash.

 

As Bordercentrics says, consistency is all important - but very hard to do.

[Alicia]

With my dogs I use a method that I do with horses when training showmanship, well similar lol.

 

So, we're walking along and they start to pull at all ahead of my leg, I slightly shuffle my feet on the ground stop and tug them up to a sit, wait a moment and walk off again, when he starts to pull ahead again I shuffle again and pull up to a sit. After they get it if they start testing you just have to shuffle your feet again and they usually slow up.

 

In horses, for showmanship (ground manuevers) we'll walk of, slight foot shuffle to stop and then immediately tap the chest and back the horse up a few steps, eventually they read body language and a slight lean back or shuffle of the feet slows and/or stops them

[RescuedPups]

[RescuedPups]

Probably only works with the 'lighter pullers' but the dogs i have had in the past, the 180 trick works well, along with a treat as someone else mentioned. Making a noise/command (but not to get them excited)seems to work for some, anything to keep there attention on you instead of whatever tehy are pulling too (never tried this with a collie - will let you know how it goes...........

[RaisingRiver]

River is funny. She pulled as a puppy on leash and I never trained her otherwise because she's rarely on leash. She's also an agility dog, so I can have her walk next to me anywhere - in the woods for example - offleash, but as soon as I clip it on, she pulls - same environment. Leash=pull to her.

 

Looks like she'll be on leash more often with my activities so we'll be working on leash=heel, not pull.