Walking Wars!

[Wellwaters]

Hi guys,I brought my "Sarge" home at 8 weeks old and have been getting tips and advice from these threads since, this is my first post but would like to thank you all both for past and future assistance!
Sarge is now 6months old and is a pretty well behaved young dog, we also have an older Labrador "Rambo" and they get on like a house on fire! Sarge learning from Rambo, but also picking up his bad habits. The problem I seem to have is when I walk them both. After half an hour or so they are fine, but for those first 20-30 minutes it can be terrible! They just pull and pull to get ahead of each other! Individually I can walk either dog without much fuss, but as soon as they're together...wow!
I've tried head collars and correction harnesses, and neither dog likes wearing the Gentle Leader Head Collar, finding it uncomfortable or restricting. The harness did prevent Rambo from pulling, but only after he physically cut the underside of his front legs (his armpits).
I can hold their attention with a treat and coax them into walking loosely on their leash, and reward them as we move along. But with both of them I find this impossible, just two disobedient doggies.
I don't want to put them on "Choke/Check Chains" and just don't have the time to walk them separately.
Any assistance will be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
Keep up the good work!

[codmaster]

Originally Posted by Wellwaters

Hi guys,I brought my "Sarge" home at 8 weeks old and have been getting tips and advice from these threads since, this is my first post but would like to thank you all both for past and future assistance!
Sarge is now 6months old and is a pretty well behaved young dog, we also have an older Labrador "Rambo" and they get on like a house on fire! Sarge learning from Rambo, but also picking up his bad habits. The problem I seem to have is when I walk them both. After half an hour or so they are fine, but for those first 20-30 minutes it can be terrible! They just pull and pull to get ahead of each other! Individually I can walk either dog without much fuss, but as soon as they're together...wow!
I've tried head collars and correction harnesses, and neither dog likes wearing the Gentle Leader Head Collar, finding it uncomfortable or restricting. The harness did prevent Rambo from pulling, but only after he physically cut the underside of his front legs (his armpits).
I can hold their attention with a treat and coax them into walking loosely on their leash, and reward them as we move along. But with both of them I find this impossible, just two disobedient doggies.
I don't want to put them on "Choke/Check Chains" and just don't have the time to walk them separately.
Any assistance will be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
Keep up the good work!

Take a look at dogproblems.com - owner has a very good proven method of teaching a quick way to get reasonable loose leash walking.

[kiya]

You kind of have to work on them individually to get loose leash walking & then put them together. My 2 older dogs are on flat collars but I still use the prong on Lakota, just having it on her she just doesn't pull. I take all 3 of my dogs out on leashes with my bicycle. At first everyone is all excited and it takes a few minutes to get into our "groove". Maybe if you exercise the younger dog first the walk might be calmer. Thats why I like the bike, the pace is faster and the dogs seem to get into moving quicker.

[MaggieRoseLee]

Your pup is the perfect age to start up dog classes so you can not only learn the loose leash/control thing but also with all the distractions in a dog class.

Then when you go home you can also teach and use the methods on your older dog.

An easy fix (but not so much training so classes are still a huge help) is to buy the Premier Gentle Leader harnesses. The leash attaches in the front on their chest between their front legs so the more they pull the more it turns them back to you. Regular harnesses are the worst cause they allow our dogs to really put their entire body into pulling just like you are the sled and they are the sled dogs in Alaska!

Easy Walk Harness Product Description - Premier Pet

You Tube

You Tube

[Marnie]

If you have a fenced exercise area, take the 'edge' off your dogs by playing a hard fast game of ball, or tug before the walk. I let all three of my dogs run free, wrestle, chase, and play ball for about 10 minutes before a walk on or off leash. That's what works best for me.

[skew12]

Originally Posted by Marnie

If you have a fenced exercise area, take the 'edge' off your dogs by playing a hard fast game of ball, or tug before the walk. I let all three of my dogs run free, wrestle, chase, and play ball for about 10 minutes before a walk on or off leash. That's what works best for me.

this has worked very well for me.

[Bear GSD]

I don't know the dynamics of walking two dogs at once since I've only ever had one at a time, but I have a neighbor that has two dogs and he uses one of those leash couplers to walk both dogs.
I think this way both dogs are at equal distance and cannot get ahead of one another. I don't know if that would make a difference or not.
I do agree with the other posters about getting the edge off by playing with the dogs before walks. Good luck

[Cassidy's Mom]

Each of my dogs walks with me separately beautifully, but together they're just like yours. So I walk them separately. Together we all go to the off leash park and they get to run around, chase balls, and even go swimming. They only have to be reasonably behaved as long as it takes to get from the car into the park, and then the leashes come off.

It's just not worth the effort it would take to fix this for me, and I really enjoy the one on one time with each of my dogs. So do they!

[FlyAway]

Originally Posted by Cassidy's Mom

Each of my dogs walks with me separately beautifully, but together they're just like yours.

LOL! Same here. I also walk mine separately. But they also love their alone time with "mom".

[Wellwaters]

Thanks so much to everyone for their advice and experiences! Been a chaotic Christmas and now it's time to ring in the new year with two well behaved dogs! Thanks again and happy new year!


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