must... reach... bush... and the front clip harness

I'd like to start this off with commending anyone who regularly walks their dog.  It provides so much that is essential to a dog's (and our) well being, not to mention how much something as simple as a walk can help build the dog/owner relationship in general.  However, one of the things that can take away from a walk is leash pulling.

A quick lesson on leash pulling:

If your dog pulls you towards something (vegetation, an entrance/exit, another dog, food, etc.), and you allow it to reach the something with the leash anything other than slack, the pull is positively reinforced.  You have basically given your dog a big juicy treat for keeping the leash tight while dragging you towards something.  The positive reinforcement (treat) is reaching the desired location.  That's it.  If we never allowed our dogs to reach the desired location from the very beginning, and reinforced a slack leash, our dogs would never pull.  It's really that simple.

Yes, you might say, that is all fine and good, but that is not how we started, my dog pulls and I want it to ease up.  Is there something that an help me with this since it is already an unwanted behavior?  The great news is that there are tools out there which help with the pulling issue!

I have recommended the following product to a bunch of people and gotten back a lot of success stories, so I thought why not tell everyone?  After all, the people have a right to know.

THE FRONT CLIP HARNESS

I personally think the front clip harness is quite possibly one of the coolest anti-pull tools on the market.    In fact, I give anything clip 5 big shiny gold stars.  Now I have always just used a roman (or standard) style harness with the metal ring on the chest and clipped it to that ring, but I really like the design and ease of the front clip harness and I own one of those as well.  Obviously, it's totally up to you how you want to handle it (if you even want to handle it).

Ember modeling the (front clip) Easy Walk Harness:

Tommy modeling a roman (or standard) style harness, used as a front clip:

The idea behind the front clip harness is that you now control the dog's center of gravity, sort of like how you can control something the size of a horse with a measly head halter.  They have to follow the front of their body, they don't have a choice.  Gravity and kinetic energy mandates it so.  So when your dog begins to pull, you can easily redirect their center of gravity, consistently show them the correct thing to do and reinforce the good behavior, and presto, one day the pulling ends completely.  Well, provided you are consistent and uphold your end of the bargain.  Or other people have luck with simply putting the harness on and walking without pulling.  The harness does all the work.  It's up to you if you want to back it up with training or not.  The thing to remember is you can change your dog's behavior any time you'd like, it just takes consistency.  Put the front clip harness on and do not reinforce pulling while it is on.

Regular collars and back clip harnesses cannot help you do this.  It was explained to me like this:  Put your hand in the area of someone's chest (neck not recommended) and lightly push.  What do they do?  They lean into it so they can maintain their control/balance.  This is the exact same concept of the collar and/or harness that is clipped on the back D ring.  Not only does it offer very little by way of control, the "push" of the collar or harness simply makes your dog "push" (or pull) back even harder.  It is natural instinct to do so.  Also, I'm really keen on redirecting rather than dragging away.  Just saying.

Keep in mind that I'm a big harness fan in general.  It keeps your dog's body language very clear where collars can sometimes cause them to go into a position they do not mean to portray.  When a collar is pulled back on from above, the head goes up, the chest comes out, the body is stiff to maintain balance and the poor dog is now challenging any dog who approaches it to a potential fight.  How lousy is that?  I personally believe a lot of leash aggression gets started due to simple leash mismanagement.

#1 thing to remember is a dog does not pull itself, which means you are 50% of the problem.  Some people would even go so far as to say you are 100% the problem as the dog doesn't know any better until you communicate (and positively reinforce) it to be otherwise.  Do you love that or what?  First time I read that I was all, "Pfff!  Yeah, okay trainer person!  SO the expert!  Because there was...  uh...  that time...  and sometimes he...  he...  should just magically know better because that would mean less work for me...  *sigh*".  And then I stopped blaming my dog.  Because I now feel silly for doing it.  Nothing changes my perception faster than feeling a fool.  ;)  Now, instead of walking the dog, I am walking with the dog.

Remember everyone, we got them into this situation.  It's not like they came knocking on the door one day asking if we needed a dependent who we could be frustrated with every time we go out for a much needed walk.  ;)  

I hope this helped!  Happy walking!