You might love your dog, but do you love walking him on the lead? If he is a puller, it’s not much fun for either of you, is it? Too often, though, we try to cure the problem and then reach the point where there doesn’t seem to be much point in going on and we just accept it. So what is the problem? Dominance? Eagerness? Cussedness? Putting a name to it won’t cure it, so let’s not concern ourselves with that and just concentrate on a cure.
If your dog is accustomed to pulling you can be sure it will carry on unless you can train him or get him into a different mind-set, despite the fact pulling is choking him. Dogs only live for the moment, and the fact that pulling leads to choking is forgotten once he feels OK again. So how do you stop it? Here are a few different things to try.
Halt Progress
This technique relies on trying to convince your pet that pulling has a negative effect. As soon as he starts to pull then stop dead. Keep quiet while doing this exercise, because if you shout commands at him while stopping him he will only associate the actual stopping with you being cross with him; so stopping then leads to you being cross, an association you don’t want to keep reinforcing! Stopping dead means what he wants-forward progress-has halted. When the lead goes slack, start off slowly again, gradually returning to normal walking speed-unless he starts pulling again.
Keep this up and be prepared for the long game. It might look crazy to your neighbors, but heck, it needs to be done. Once cured, all this will be over. Brainy dogs will learn fast. Others will require more of your patience!
Reverse Progress
This takes the above method to a different level. As soon as the dog pulls, turn around and head in the opposite direction until it pulls again. Then repeat, ad-nauseam! This method, even more, reinforces to the dog the fact that pulling leads to the opposite of what he wants: progress. If this means it takes a whole lot longer to get to the park for his off-the-lead fun then great; hopefully, over a few days, he will eventually connect with the fact that not pulling gets him there much faster.
Reward Training
Your dog will like this a whole lot better. Get some small and tasty dog treats or make your own by thinly slicing a tasty (not cheap) sausage or carrying small balls of cheese. Set off on your walk with the treats very easily accessible; you must be able to get at them without delay or fumbling. You are going to treat the dog when it is walking to heel, and that must only occur then. Remember the phrase: ‘a dog only lives for the moment.’ ‘The moment’, for a dog, lasts about a second; truly! When your dog is walking to heel say “good heel” and give a treat.
The idea is to treat at the same moment as praising by “good” and, at the same time, connecting the word ‘heel’ with the good action. Your dog is never at heel? Then you need to combine with the ‘Halt Progress’ or ‘Reverse Progress’ methods above to get to that situation, no matter how briefly. Once the dog has learned to walk to heel, and has connected the word ‘heel’ with doing that, then, when it sometimes forgets, you can stop, wait for the slack lead, and say ‘good heel’ again. Later, the reminder ‘Heel’ might bring him back in line. Do not keep shouting ‘heel’ when he is not at heel, or he won’t associated heel with being at your heel! Dogs are big on connections, but they must always occur at the same time.
If your dog is constantly looking round for a treat, just tell him to “walk on”; only give the treat when he is walking properly to heel, not looking around for a treat. Also, if you give a lot of treats in a day, remember to reduce his normal meal slightly; you don’t want a fat dog as a result of treating!
Click and Treat Training
Buy a dog training clicker at your pet shop and read the instructions. You need to understand that you must never click unintentionally or the whole process will fail: a click must be consistently meaningful to a dog: it must always mean “great, you’re doing it right”-whatever that might be. In this case, it will be walking correctly and perfectly to heel. Never use a click to signify a negative effect (ie the opposite of praise; signaling your displeasure in a way such as this will never have any effect. Only use clicking to mean something is good. (If you cannot get a clicker, or want to be free from this encumbrance, provided you can do a loud click with your tongue then that will suffice.)
Firstly you need your dog to learn that a click means a treat is coming his way. So get him near and then click and immediately treat within half-a-second of the click. Trust me, it doesn’t take long for a dog to learn the connection! Never click more than once or you desensitize the effect of the click. The click goes right into the doggy brain because it is so distinctive. That noise must only ever mean “treat time” to him.
The heel training method is basically the same as ‘Reward Training’ described above, but this time you click when your pet is at heel and not pulling, and then offer the treat within half-a-second of the click. He should soon learn the connection.
Gradually space out the time between click-treats until the pulling problem is cured.
Cheat!
If you find that perseverance with the above techniques is not working for you and your dog, or you just want to cheat, then Google ‘non-pull harness’-or go to my website for a longer version of this article which also tells you how to get your dog to stop pulling instantly, and how some products are far better than others; the wrong products can actually hurt your dog, so take care to read reviews before buying. Of course, solving the problem like this has not trained the dog: it has merely provided you with a solution. (If you are pragmatic, however, you might think this a small price to pay for a dog that is then a pleasure to take walkies!)
Bringing it all Together
Maybe it is a cheat to use a non-pull harness, but if that’s the only means of getting full control over your dog, it’s worth it. But why not try bringing it all together once that has been working for a while? It’s time to try moving up a level. I’ve done it with a pulling border collie and they’re famous for not even like being on the lead. Here’s how.
Halfway around a familiar walking route that does not end in the park, discretely change the lead coupling from the non-pull harness to the collar by just slipping it across, then carry on as before using ‘Reward Training’ or ‘Click and Treat’ training. The dog should not really realize you have made a switch of coupling point. Chances are that after a week or so on the non-pull harness your dog has got used to what you want and will now walk to heel without its constraints. (Obviously, this will only work if the non-pull harness has done its magic.)
If this works, don’t assume you no longer need the harness. Continue to use it for a while, but gradually decreasing the time your dog starts out on it. Then try mixing in a walk that ends up with off-lead exercise: more difficult, since the dog knows, from your route, he is going off-lead later and will be more eager. A few games in the garden to reduce a bit of energy before you try this might help.