My brother recently acquired a dog from his neighbor. He is we think a bermese mountain dog mix possible with rottie or akita, or both lol he is 1 yr old and has been tethered all his life. drake ended up hung up on his fence so my brother went and got him and has had him for 2 days now. Drake has not one mean bone in his body, and his jumping (which was hard to deal with because of his sheer size) is no more (he's been around 3 well behaved dogs, i think that's why he decided he has no need to jump). However, walking him is another story. He seems to have it embedded in his mind that once a leash is on, he pulls and that's what you do when a leash is on. How can we break such a large, determined dog of this bad habit? He is not neutered and I suppose that could be part of the problem but is there anything we can do while he is not neutered? I've never trained a dog like this to walk on a leash, so I don't know where to start.
Training not to pull on leash
- Thread starter KhayNette
- Start date
This is a beautiful act your brother is doing here. And he is going to have a wonderful friend or a long time.
It looks like Drake is pretty smart. Already he does not jump ... he learn fast.
This is what I would do.
- Get a harness. I know a lot trainers disagree about harnesses, saying that it makes your dog pull more and I disagree. You are looking for a "step in harness" with a loop on the back and a loop on the chest.
- Get a double ended leash (with a hook on each side)
- hook one side of the leash on the loop in the back .... the other side on the loop on the chest.
Now when you walk Drake you have 2 points of contact. When you apply pressure on its chest, he will stop pulling. The moment he stop pulling release he pressure.
This is not very easy to explain in writting but the idea is to apply pressure on the chest which stop te dog from pulling and then release the pressure. Over time your dog will stop pulling.
This principle is used in Ttouch training (Tellington Touch) with a technique called the balance leash. In my experience this is the best way to teach a dog to stop pulling.
Here are links to a few youtube video which hopefully can help:
Balance leash
Turid Ruggas Walking on the leash - Why do dogs pull
I hope that helps
Catherine
It looks like Drake is pretty smart. Already he does not jump ... he learn fast.
This is what I would do.
- Get a harness. I know a lot trainers disagree about harnesses, saying that it makes your dog pull more and I disagree. You are looking for a "step in harness" with a loop on the back and a loop on the chest.
- Get a double ended leash (with a hook on each side)
- hook one side of the leash on the loop in the back .... the other side on the loop on the chest.
Now when you walk Drake you have 2 points of contact. When you apply pressure on its chest, he will stop pulling. The moment he stop pulling release he pressure.
This is not very easy to explain in writting but the idea is to apply pressure on the chest which stop te dog from pulling and then release the pressure. Over time your dog will stop pulling.
This principle is used in Ttouch training (Tellington Touch) with a technique called the balance leash. In my experience this is the best way to teach a dog to stop pulling.
Here are links to a few youtube video which hopefully can help:
Balance leash
Turid Ruggas Walking on the leash - Why do dogs pull
I hope that helps
Catherine
ClickerSolutions has a few good articles on LLW:
ClickerSolutions Training Articles Contents
ClickerSolutions Training Articles Contents
Or you could just get a front clip harness like the easy walk harness, or just clip to the front. I don't see why the second leash would be all that beneficial. (complicates things lol)
Clickersolutions is a great resource! Dogs pull on leash because we inadvertently train them to do so. With some training and lots of persistence the dog will be fine
Clickersolutions is a great resource! Dogs pull on leash because we inadvertently train them to do so. With some training and lots of persistence the dog will be fine
