Dog Pulling on Leash – How to Solve it in Under 30 Minutes
November 22nd, 2009
One of the most frustrating behaviors for most dog owners is when their dog refuses to walk calmly by your side and instead constantly tries to pull you along on your walks, dictating where he wants to go, how fast he wants to get there, and pays little or no attention to you, his owner.
A dog pulling on leash is a definite signal that they believe they are running the show and that you’re only there to follow their leadership. So what winds up happening is that they pay attention to distractions rather than you, the handler…basically anything other than you.
It’s a very common behavior problem among the dogs I train, but it’s extremely easy to solve.
It’s very useful if you have access to videos of professional trainers demonstrating proper dog walking techniques.
We’ll cover more on this in just a bit.
First, let’s go over three extremely easy fixes for your dog pulling on leash issue.
1. The Pack Leader Harness. It’s unfortunate, but pretty much all of the collars that are available today make this problem worse, because they basically encourage your dog to want to pull even harder.
Instead of a typical collar, a choke chain, or a prong collar, try a different method such as a Pack Leader Harness. This type of harness fits in exactly the right way around your dog’s body and applies pressure where you need it in order to focus the dog’s attention back on the handler.
You can find this type of harness on the Internet without any problem. Just do a quick search on Google and you’ll find places where you can order it.
2. Learn what you can about training with a clicker. A clicker, which in my opinion is like the cure-all of dog training aids. It can be useful in correcting so many different unwanted behaviors in dogs, that I encourage you to take a look at this training method.
Simply put, you teach your dog to expect something good to happen when the clicker sounds. Once this expectation is planted in his mind, the dog will almost instantly focus his attention exclusively on you whenever he hears the sound of the clicker.
We don’t have a tremendous amount of space in this article to go through the ins and outs of clicker training, but there are plenty of resources where you can learn the basics.
A clicker is useful in correcting leash pulling, because the sound will redirect a dog’s attention away from the distraction and back on you.
3. Food reards. Any dog owner knows the power of the food treat to mold a dog’s behavior. When using treats to stop a dog’s leash pulling problem, what you basically want to do is introduce the food to your dog, and then let the dog use his naturally powerful sense of smell to direct his attention and his movements in the direction you want.
It’s obviously a lot simpler if you can just watch this in action, so let’s get to that now.
Thankfully, stopping a dog from pulling on his leash isn’t all that difficult. I’ve been on a lot of TV programs where I’ve shown dog owners these very same techiques, so I’d like to show you a complete video that reveals exactly how to do this in less than half an hour.
Right now, visit this dog pulling on leash video on my website, where you’ll find a full tutorial that teaches you how to use a pack leader harness, a clicker, or food rewards (or all three) to teach your dog to walk calmly right by your side and always listen to what you want him to do.
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