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Dog pulls to the park

4K views 34 replies 13 participants last post by  Cassidy's Mom 
#1 ·
Hi, my dog doesn't pull anymore on walks except when we are anywhere near the vicinity of his favorite park, or we are actually on the way to the park. No choke collar or prong collar seems to stop this, and I feel bad that he chokes himself in pain in an effort to get to the park. I do all the classic methods such as stopping and not moving whenever he pulls, turning around and going the other way, collar pops, but once I take a half step towards the park he pulls like crazy to get there. Walks around the neighborhood are fine so long as I don't walk towards the park. Any new ideas?
 
#5 ·
I was warned by a trainer to NEVER put a head halter on my strong, athletic German shepherd. Those things can cause neck injuries if the dog suddenly takes off.

I could see a case being made for them actually being more dangerous than a prong. I realize people in some countries have ridiculous laws they have to contend with, but given the choice, I will not put a Gentle Leader on my dog.
 
#12 ·
IMO, this is not a matter of finding an apparatus that works but rather a method. You may not always have that "on" your dog. In my experience, when a dog pulls you stop immediately. You wait until he/she calms down, reward them and then go about your business again. Repeat as long as it takes.

The world is so quick to find a solution that isn't behaviorally based. Be very patient...he's a smart dog and he'll get it eventually. I might even do what I described on the way to the park and then simply walk past the park. Do that a few times and see if it works.
 
#16 ·
My guy wasn't necessarily pulling, but not walking with a loose leash either. My trainer did not like that one bit, she seems very old school to me. She took the leash to show my wife and I during our private lesson how to correct. She gave him a fairly firm correction through the prong collar and gave him an easy command. She immediately praised him following the correction and he loosened up. She reinforced the behavior a few times and we moved on. Our homework was to take him out when we got home and walk about 30 feet. Give him the easy command and correction when necessary, turn around and head back home. Kennel him for 15 minutes or so to let it soak it. Then take him back out and go to the end of the street. Same process, but now around the whole block. He had it down after she got done with him. We took him home and all is now well. He now walks at the pace my wife or I set, on a loose leash with very few corrections. I am sure you have tried this or something very similar, but it worked wonders for us.
 
#20 ·
My pup used to get like that for all things exciting. Loose leash walk on pinch has helped tremendously. Teach 'with me' 3-4 feet of loose lead. If he forges ahead of your left leg, 1-2 leash pops before he hits the end of the lead and 'no' or 'uh uh.' Stop walking, make him come back to you. Change direction before he hits the end of the lead. Don't look at him. He doesn't get to go anywhere if he's puling you. Oh well. Rinse and repeat many many times. It's taken me a year.
Has this dog been taught to heel or just loose leash walk?
He walks loose and heels fairly well, but as soon as I take a single step towards the park he pulls like a madman. Maybe he's just a very hard dog because I'm a pretty big guy and give him some strong corrections, he just eats them and keeps going. I'm seriously considering an e-collar because the pain he gets from the prong is probably much worse than a shock will be. This and medium dog aggression is the only problem I'm having with him. He's a very sweet boy otherwise.
 
#22 ·
The only thing you have to do I going home with him as soon as he pulls to the park. I have written this out more in another current thread about a bratty adolescent dog.
This will work with even a flat collar as long as you are consistent. Tire him out before you go also helps. If he wants it bad enough he will brace himself for the prong or choker. Not what a good trainer looks like ;) (couldn't resist this one)
 
#25 ·
Dogs don't think like kids. They don't necessarily link up the pulling with the not getting to go to the park.

If you don't want pulling, train him not to pull. Focused heel is one good method that applies to many situations where the dog is going to get over aroused.

I wouldn't use an e-collar for this, unless you have a lot of e-collar experience or are working with a very good trainer, prong is OK for proofing, but you should be able to do focused heel without any tools if you train it correctly. All the training steps should be done with just a flat collar to start.

I'd take him to the park if that is the place he goes to work out some energy and enjoy being a dog. Doesn't seem far to punish him for pulling when all he is, is excited to get out and play. I try not to blame a dog for being a dog, when has never been properly trained to understand what I want from him.
 
#26 ·
He does a good focused heel at the park, but like a previous poster said, he might be a hardass dog. Corrections seem to have little effect on him but I know the prong hurts him, I asked about an e-collar because in my opinion it's a less painful correction than the prong and it "snaps" them out of it better (from what I hear).
 
#27 ·
I do all the classic methods such as stopping and not moving whenever he pulls, turning around and going the other way, collar pops, but once I take a half step towards the park he pulls like crazy to get there.
So start with the un-classical methods.

Going home is not a solution either.

I would work the dog til he actually looks at me thinking wtf. How deep does desensitizing go. Is it something you try once for 5 minutes or is it something you can spend hours at daily?

But look at it like this, if you bring the dog to the park and walk him away from it again and do that every day, would the dog eventually think a trip towards the park is not going to lead to a great time.

You take the excitement out of the trip to the park. It may involve staying outside the park for hours every day./ Walking around it. Walking to it and away from it.

Any dog at some stage will stop being fixated with something. That is the point you make progress in situations like this so you need to think outside the box and actually be more intelligent than the dog.

Desensitizing and Counter-Conditioning: Overcoming Your Dog?s Issues
 
#28 ·
I'd take him to the park if that is the place he goes to work out some energy and enjoy being a dog. Doesn't seem far to punish him for pulling when all he is, is excited to get out and play. I try not to blame a dog for being a dog, when has never been properly trained to understand what I want from him.
It doesn't seem fair that the dog is gonna pull with all his strength away from the owner. Who is ment to be the boss in your relationship with your dog?

So is your advice do nothing, act like normal. The exact behavior which got the dog to this stage.

Trying to train a dog is not punishment. But punishment is a normal part of operand conditioning. It doesn't have to inflict suffering or injury on the dog at all.

A dog pulling like this can cause injury to the person holding the leash, can hurt the dogs neck. It also can make the owner frustrated and not enjoy the walk or the animal. It looks like the owner has no control over the dog. It is bad whatever way i look at it.

It can be stopped and when it is it is beneficial for the dog and the owner. Simple leash techniques by the likes of Tyler Muto will help a lot.

Problems like this don't have a magic solution but over time strategies can be developed to solve the problem. Once you fix it, it is like a weight lifted.
 
#29 ·
Ok, I did some focused heeling this morning using a ball on a string. I saw very little progress (maybe 5%), but I guess it's a step in the right direction. But I saw even better progress with the dog aggression, he saw a dog and tried to lunge at it, I started the focused heel and we walked by with much less focus on the other dog.
 
#34 ·
Be careful with that. It doesn't sound like the dog is totally solid on the focused heel yet. Using it while walking by distractions like the other dog now can be setting the two of you up to fail. You really need it to be solid first. Pushing him to do a focus heel in a high distraction situation before he is ready can really set you back on overall progress.
 
#30 ·
Another thing I did with my female, who is not very large but incredibly strong, is I taught her pull, vs. not pull.

So, for example, when she naturally started pulling along for whatever reason, I'd link it to "hike, hike" (for pull) and let her really go at it for a bit. Then, I'd teach her "whoa" and "easy" and reward. It didn't take long before I had a great skijor dog and also a dog I could control when she got excited and wanted to pull.

I had both a flat collar and a harness on her, and would hook to the harness when I had her pulling. Don't train this without a harness, it could damage the dog's neck or throat.

Grab the book "Training Lead Dogs" by Lee Fleischman for some nice background on this type of training. Training Lead Dogs by Lee Fishback - Adanac Sleds & Equipment

I found this the most effective for me, especially because I skijor with my dog, but a good focused heel is also a terrific tool to have for many situations. Just what worked for me.
 
#31 ·
Another thing I did with my female, who is not very large but incredibly strong, is I taught her pull, vs. not pull.

So, for example, when she naturally started pulling along for whatever reason, I'd link it to "hike, hike" (for pull) and let her really go at it for a bit. Then, I'd teach her "whoa" and "easy" and reward. It didn't take long before I had a great skijor dog and also a dog I could control when she got excited and wanted to pull.

I had both a flat collar and a harness on her, and would hook to the harness when I had her pulling. Don't train this without a harness, it could damage the dog's neck or throat.

Grab the book "Training Lead Dogs" by Lee Fleischman for some nice background on this type of training. Training Lead Dogs by Lee Fishback - Adanac Sleds & Equipment

I found this the most effective for me, especially because I skijor with my dog, but a good focused heel is also a terrific tool to have for many situations. Just what worked for me.
With all do respect, I don't think that training her to pull is not right for me. I would rather have him hate this behavior than learn to like it.
 
#35 ·
I do all the classic methods such as stopping and not moving whenever he pulls, turning around and going the other way, collar pops, but once I take a half step towards the park he pulls like crazy to get there. Walks around the neighborhood are fine so long as I don't walk towards the park. Any new ideas?
How much time have you given these things to work? And how old is the dog? The longer a behavior is allowed to continue the firmer entrenched it can become, making it more of a challenge to extinguish. But if it's really important to you, it can be done.

When I was training Halo to walk nicely on leash she was around 6 or 7 months old. All of this training was done on a flat collar since we were going to be taking the CGC test in a couple of months and she wouldn't be able to use any kind of training collar for that. I started out inside our house, then outside in the dog run and backyard, then in our neighborhood. I progressed to taking her to all 3 strip malls in town and practicing on the sidewalks in front of the stores. She was doing great by then, so I decided to up the ante and take her to a local regional park that has heavily used paved paths next to a lake. Families with babies in strollers, with young children running around, people walking dogs, joggers, people carrying fishing gear, lots of bicycles - as you can imagine, this was MUCH more challenging than boring sidewalks in town, especially when you added all the interesting smells, the squirrels, the wild turkey, the geese, the deer....

So the first time we went I parked on the street, about a half block from the park entrance. And although she was walking beautifully with me everywhere else we'd trained, she did not do so well there, lol. Every time she pulled forward, I started walking backwards. Penalty yards. The more you lunge ahead, the further away you get. For me, just stopping and starting didn't work that well, but going backwards did.

We did this over and over and over again. It literally took more than 20 minutes to get from the car to the park, a half block away, that first visit. But each time we went she did better because I was consistent, I NEVER let pulling work. I did not require perfect focus but I would reward her when she looked at me, and this was not a strict heel position, but I did have very clear criteria for the loose leash walking that I expected and I spent months reinforcing it. Once in awhile she still gets excited and pulls towards something she's interested in. I just stop, wait for her to turn around, look at me and sit, and then I release her to "go sniff". If she gets a step or two further ahead than I want her to, I take a step or two backwards and she immediately comes back to my side, and we move forward again.
 
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