Hi Jack's Dad!

I am trying to teach Zach not to pull on the lead too. We have struggled for a while using a gentle leader (a fancy collar that goes round the dogs nose so he cant pull). He absolutely hated it and used to lay down in protest making walks a nuisance. Then we went back to the old fashioned "stop whenever the dog pulls and say no" approach. This is meant to teach the dog plain and simple that pulling gets them nowhere. Whenever there was no tension in the lead I rewarded him with a titbit and lots of praise. However, I was recently advised by Dogpositivetraining (a member on here who is a dog trainer) to try a different approach. Hopefully she wont mind me stealing this from another thread:

"One thing with the walking to heel though, can I suggest a different approach, because there is a problem with creating/allowing tension in a leash, it can give a dog mixed signals and he could find it rewarding.

So, have a refresher on walking to heel. Use a 6ft leash. Take up most of the excess with your right hand, and with your left hand leave about 10 inches of slack between your hand and the trigger attachment, and also have a fair bit of slack on the leash between your left and right hand.
Zach is on your left. Any time his neck/shoulder passes your hip/knee, release your left hand off the leash (so no tension), and change direction, when he's back walking to heel give him praise and a treat, and then place your left hand back on the leash in the same position.
With this method Zach will learn that where he needs to be is at your side with no tension on the leash.
Once a dog feel tension on a leash it makes them want to pull more and this can be self rewarding."

So yesterday we went to a quiet field and first practised with no distractions. Then I took him to an averagely busy part of the park and practised there to get him to listen to me when there are distractions. I must say with all the methods I've used, this one seems to be getting through the most. I'm going to put a lot of time in this week and hopefully soon he will realise his place is next to me with no pulling. Good luck with your training

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