Thank you so much for that link. I have been struggling all along with Poppy and pulling, particularly on the outward journey, she's always a little better on the way back as she's tired.

I've tried a harness quite a few times but she refuses to walk with it on, just lies down glued to the floor. So I have no alternative but to use her flat collar and I am soooooooo worried about her trachea as she does start to cough. You might remember a recent post about her manic behaviour on the beach with her litter sister and the doodle. We now don't walk with them, just meet up occasionally on the actual beach for a run and don't walk there or back with them.

This morning I tried Kikopup's idea of getting Poppy to stop if she pulled, dropping treats on the floor behind my foot and getting her to come back for them. Not 100%, especially as we neared the beach and she knew where she was going (and there were two other dogs she was hoping to catch up with!), but a massive improvement. I shall keep on with this idea and hopefully it wont be too long before we've cracked it!

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Poppy's blog: Poppy's Puppy Tales

When that happens do you face her and look at her? If so I would try turning round slightly to side so you can just out of corner of eye see if she looks around bored. That's the moment to try upbeat and move forwards or lure to heel with treat.

The beach is high distraction! It is a bind, I know you want to walk there, but OTOH you want to not have the pulling. A front/double clip harness ought to be comfortable and stop pulling, without lifting the dog up, it turns around rather than drives forward. But as you have trouble you can be super ruthless and use the desire to get to the beach to turn back, on each pull and ignore her if she plants and such, being patient. Might take an hour to get there if necessary but reward nice warking the other way by turning round again. Luring with treats will probably work less well with the distraction and excitement of going to the beach. I prefer places like quiet narrow canal or country paths to get heeling with treating at first once out of the garden, as it minimises distractions especially with hedges (so long as there's not too many rabbit holes about).

This is the harness I got, with the front and back D rings.

She has actually worn it on the beach, it was part of my strategy to get her used to it, as she wouldn't walk with it on I put it on once we got to the beach and she was happy to run and play and not think about it. Once I clpped the lead onto it (tried front ring only, back ring only, both together, also tried leaving the harness on and attaching lead to collar) that was it, no way Jose!

Yep, tried that sort of thing. She's quite happy to just lie there, or sit up and watch the world go by.

I'll carry on with the LLW training for now and when there's been a good improvement with that then I'll try the harness again.

I bought her a new collar last week, it is about 2mm wider than her other one and made of a slightly stiffer webbing and has a very slightly bigger clip (plastic). We had exactly the same reaction with that. She would rather do without her walk/beach run than wear it and just lay down.

We'd have to drive to somewhere like that, we've only got the beach or woods 10 minute drive away.

When she was spayed at 10 months, the vet said she was a VERY sensitive dog and she wouldn't put a lampshade thing on her as it would have traumatised her. She showed us how to make something to cover her stitches so she didn't interfere with them - just a rectangle of old t-shirt with four holes for legs, put it under her tummy, bring it up the sides and fasten at the top with ties put through some little holes. We did this and just put it on her at bedtime, and even that was something she hated. As soon as it was on she lowered her back end and scooted along then lay down and didn't move. Good job I'm not the sort to want to dress her up in doggie clothes!

She's coming up to 12 months old now and I'm hoping she'll get better as she gets a bit older.

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Poppy's blog: Poppy's Puppy Tales

Shame, the Shi-Tzu pup is one of the least trainable breeds in the ratings on dog intelligence, the Neighbours had some trouble with it and perhaps daunted. But I found it was little things like that which could make much difference, so long as right response to a "trick" was genuinely rewarded. It actually seems to love training seeing it as play with people. So just having more confidence to persist with the right things, has been working for my Neighbours. I can't believe it's only 70/79 breeds tested

May be your dog is clever enough to realise you give up first. With my Border who's very quick but not always "biddable", sometimes I just sit down and wait for 5-10 minutes, chilling

He's a bit of a rogue for extending park trips, without being openly disobedient, he's sneeky about it!
For instance, I think he has learnt I like him being friendly with other dogs, but in the park, his drive to work-play takes over; so after meeting a few "buddies" on way out I've gone back in for a short lap. So now on way out he's very keen it seems on meeting and play with other dogs, but I am fairly sure if I go in, he'll just want to do his herding games within seconds

When he plants or avoided, it has been a genuine fear/dislike of the car and is stressed. So like your vet advised, I treat him very sensitively, rather than make it worse by having a battle of wills.

Anyway the harness looks excellent choice from the pics, and it sounds like you've thought things through. New idea, if she's happy to play on the beach in harness, how about back chaining? Put it on just off the beach, then on path further back and so on?

The reward would be the play on the beach, if you had a longish lead, it would be very odd if she could resist staying behind you as you almost arrive on it!

I like the back chaining idea, thank you for that. There is one route we take to the beach where she recognises half way down the road that that is probably the destination (and can start pulling even if she's been fairly good so far) and that would be a perfect place to try it out. (Why is it that I can't think of these ideas, I've learned so much from this forum the last few weeks that I ought to be working things out for myself now )

I did a variation of this route yesterday and wanted to turn onto a different road before we got to the beach. She'd started to pull to go the normal way then sat down when she realised we weren't going. OH said to go straight there but I said no, we can't give in and let her dictate where she wants to go. So I had to lure her the other way (dried liver is quite useful!), took the other road and then turned down to the beach so she still got her reward of her favourite destination but on my terms.

I was really pleased that on the second walk using Kikopup's idea worked well again, she's got used to me stopping and coming back for the treat and there were a few times she came back and didn't get one so I think it's sinking in quite well.

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Poppy's blog: Poppy's Puppy Tales

Well you will do! What you were doing shows judgement, you just need sheer bl**dy persistence and being dogged to refuse to give up thinking of alternative better possibilities