No Pull Harness or what?

[idahospud49]

Alright, I would like some opinions on what to use with Glock. He is an oddball. Which is one of the many many reasons I love him. The doofus knows how to walk correctly next to me, but he is in that total ADHD stage of everything is a distraction. Sometimes he moves like a snail because he is interested in something behind us, sometimes he is trying to charge ahead wanting to get that bunny, prairie dog, bird, bug, whatever. (Can you say high prey drive?) We are working more on focus, but I am looking on advice of what to use with him. He has just a regular ol' collar and I am willing to try whatever you think would work best.
Opinions?

[doggiedad]

training and socializing works best. a device doesn't train a dog.

[Freestep]

How old is he? Keep some yummy food treats on you and you could use either a no-pull harness, Halti, or prong collar to stop the pulling. I would buy all three and use what works best for any given situation. A friend of mine who had a severely dog-aggressive dog had the best success with a Halti; it was the only thing that kept him under control, but some dogs really hate having something around their snout and will fight it so much that it's counterproductive. I've always had good success with prong collars. For a puppy, you don't need to use it for corrections at this point, as the dog corrects himself if he pulls. The "Easy Walk" harness is the one that snaps to the leash in the front and redirects the dog to you if he pulls. I haven't personally used it but have seen it work for others.

When he's walking nicely beside you as he should, treats. When he starts acting like a doofus and wants to run after butterflies, redirect him to you(prong, harness or Halti will help with this) and treat him when he looks at you. Walking shouldn't be a battle of wills and you both should enjoy it!

[cassadee7]

I like the EasyWalk harness with a D ring on front. I use it with Saber often.

[e.rigby]

Instead of looking for a tool to solve your problems when he becomes distracted, try working on gaining and keeping his attention. It seems he is most likely to ignore you when there are small furry animals around... so don't start there! Instead, work on voluntary attention -- which is him giving you attention without even being asked. Start small, utilize high quality reinforcers. Slowly increase the amount of time he focuses on you. Once you have good voluntary attention in low distraction environments start to slowly (very slowly) increase the distractions. Go back to only requiring him to focus for short amounts of time... then, in time, increase the duration of focus with increased distractions...

If you do this right then when you get to the highest level of distraction he won't be phased, he'll focus on you (because he has a learned past of reinforcement) and he'll ignore the small furry critter.

Simply put, if he's pulling you and he's doing it because he's distracted, take a few steps back to where he walks nicely and reinforce the **** out of that behavior.

Too often do owners focus on the bad behavior and only try to fix a problem as it arises... working on increasing the good behavior in the absence of distractions and then slowly working up to those distractions will ensure you have better success!

In any event, good luck!

[Emoore]

Kopper's in that same phase. I use a combination of liver treats and a prong collar. Took him about 2 walks to realize that if he was walking on my left side, he got liver treats at random and if he was pulling on the leash, he got a correction. Now he walks by my left side probably 70% of the time and walks on a lose leash another 29.5%. He very very rarely pulls.