I have a seven-month-old, 45 lb., very enthusiastic, very strong black lab pup, named Riley. As is common with this breed, she doesn’t have an “off switch” except when she’s asleep. She’s smart and strong-willed and, yes, a bit spoiled (there, I said it. Are you happy now?). She’ll pull through a neck collar like it isn’t even there. I’ve tried a harness where the leash attaches in the back but she freezes when she feels any pressure asking her to move forward or, if she sees something she wants, pulls my arm off when I try to hold her back.
Positive reinforcement with treats works when she’s in the house or the backyard. But take her into the Big World and all bet’s are off. Back when I worked with Rottweilers 25 years ago, I used a prong collar – the training collar of choice back then – but they are harsh, and I really don’t want to use one on Riley.
People have recommended a head halter, like the Gentle Leader, or a front ring harness to help give me more control over her. Does anyone have experience with either of these? What worked best in your situation and why? Thanks in advance.
I had a mean Dalmatian that pulled like a horse. She had to have a muzzle on when we were out with her. For some reason the muzzle hooked around her head put the brakes on. So…it seems to me the head thing will work better.
I have my dogs on both right now. My AmStaff/Lab mix gets a Halti and my other mutt gets a harness with a back loop.
When I had a big strong golden retriever she had to use a Halti (Gentle Leader) and I think it was because she was so strong, it was the most effective way to control her. Anything else I used would just be me fighting against her muscles.
My current dog that wears one, I chose that for her because she has a very strong sniffing instinct and if her face gets close to the ground she doesn’t stop. So I use the Halti to keep her head up and to keep her moving.
My boy that uses a harness (I recommend Freedom Harness) uses it because he slips out of collars, and out of harnesses, and needed something to keep him secure while he’s going nuts. I didn’t have to use the front loop because he doesn’t pull…he just is leash reactive and goes nuts on occasion.
I walk with other leash-reactive dogs sometimes (mostly pitbulls) and mostly they use Freedom Harness with the front loop. Although the woman I walked with last week said the front loop doesn’t work too well with her pit. If she wants to freak out, she’ll freak out.
If your dog has issues with harnesses, I’d recommend the Gentle Leader or Halti to try first.
Do note that being good with either of these methods, and especially a head halter, takes practice from both of you. My dogs have all been good walkers because we spent hours and hours and hours practicing - at obedience class and then every day at home too. No type of leash or halter is going to magically fix your dog’s problems but will give you an easier time in your training.
Zip, did you leave the Halti on while your dog was in the house? I’ve read that it’s a useful tool for corrections in the house – to stop the dog jumping up or putting its paws on the kitchen counter. Have you used it that way?
I’m also seeing a behavior that I’ve never dealt with before and that’s disobedience with a defiant attitude. Not just not coming when called – I know we need to work on our recall skills – but being belligerent when she doesn’t get her way. Barking back when she’s told “no,” refusing to get off the furniture, refusing to get in her bed when told unless there are treats involved, whining and crying if you close the bathroom door. She’s got a “make me” attitude that I’m not used to (and I thought rotties were stubborn!). She knows I’m the alpha in our house but I have to get really loud to get her to listen (btw, she treats my partner like he’s just another puppy). She acts like an adolescent child. Is that what this is? When will she outgrown it? What do I do with her in the meantime?
I don’t have suggestions for the belligerence in the house, other than positive reinforcement, positive reinforcement, positive reinforcement.
For walks, the gentle leader has worked great for me. A front-ring harness helps you hold them, but it doesn’t do much to discourage them from pulling. The gentle leader makes it uncomfortable to pull, but without the pain of a choke chain or prongs.
We did have our dog wear it around the house initially, but it was more to get used to it. I’d hesitate to use it for correction in the house. It’s good for walks because the lesson you are teaching is, walks are pleasant when you don’t pull! If you also use it in the house, I worry the dog might associate it more with being corrected, not with an enjoyable experience.
You might try having her do “push-ups”. Give her the idea with some short training sessions a few times a day, then widen it out to asking her to do it before anything she wants: food, before you leash up before a walk, etc
Re: the things she doesn’t want to do. I think you need to break this down into reward every time, and do training sessions on these specific items. Couch example: teach Up (jumps on at your command and gets a treat) followed by Off (treat or play). Bed: in gets a treat, then leave her for only a short period and Out on command gets a treat. Extend the time gradually.
If she isn’t supposed to get on the couch at all, or you need to keep an eye on her, I’d put a leash on her and keep her close to you to prevent it from happening at all.
In terms of your partner, have him do the puppy pushups with her too.
Puppy push-up: Sit, down, stand (or touch hand or sit again). I teach it with a reward at each step and then two steps then reward, etc.
Leet the Wonder Dog[sup]TM[/sup] has learned how to be Good Dog on nice walks on his Gentle Leader. I never tried the other kind of harness you mention, because (as TroutMan mentions) I don’t want him to pull at all. I am strong enough to hold him back, but I want him to learn he needs to go this fast because otherwise he gets a correction that pulls his head off line and doesn’t let him get going with a pull. Less is more - I am not dragging him back into Heel position. I am pointing out to him that he is not in Heel position and needs to return.
The Gentle Leader is also good when he begins to alert on passing squirrels/other dogs/the UPS truck that he wants to bark at. A quick twitch lets him know, Yes, I see it, it is no threat and you don’t need to challenge it, stay on task, which is to trot nicely at my side and piddle every fifty yards.
He always starts off Nice Walks by checking if he can get away with it this time, but after a couple of corrections he gets into the spirit of things and it goes better from then on. Unless there is scary thunder - then we have to go home RIGHT NOW! If I foolishly insist on continuing the walk in the rain, he cowers at my side, looking hopefully for the moment when we can go home and hide in the closet where Scary Thunder can’t get him.
I didn’t leave the Halti on the golden at home. I did do some training with her on a leash for sitting when people came in the door. But not with the Halti. I agree that I don’t think it’s useful for in-home correction. You want it to ultimately be seen as a fun thing that means walks, not an angry thing that pinches your nose when you’re bad.
Make sure you’re not doing too much yelling back at her when she barks at you. At that point you’re all just barking together.
Positive reinforcement is key but so is redirection, really just like a child. Dogs look to you tell them what to do. If they’re doing something that you don’t like, give them an alternative to what to do. If you don’t want them to go on the couch, tell them to lay on the floor. And when they lay on the floor - good doggy!
I didn’t use treats too much when training my golden. Hardly any treats at all (we went through like 4 years of obedience school and never used treats). The trainer said “what happens when you don’t have treats?”
I used treats with my 2 new dogs and I find they are much pushier with me than the golden was. Maybe it’s just the nature of our relationship, or maybe it’s because there’s 2 of them this time, but I feel like they get bitchy with me because they’re expecting treats and I don’t have any to give.
I love the term Puppy Pushups! That was the way I trained in the past. I called it “kitchen obedience,” because it was the kind of simple stuff you could while you were also making dinner. Riley has to sit and stay while her dinner is being dished up and wait to be released before she can eat. She has to sit and “leave it” before she gets a treat (no jumping up and snatching it out of my hand). She has to sit and wait politely before leaving her pen in the morning. But when she’s playing or gets really tuned up, she’s completely deaf to any commands. I’m hoping the head halter will help me get her attention back on me.
This may be were some of the problem lies. My partner is totally permissive with her. To him, permissiveness = love. He’s told me proudly how he never trained the cocker spaniels he had in the past, but also admitted that they wouldn’t walk on a leash, stay in a crate, ride quietly in the car, stand to be examined by the vet or come when called. It baffles me that he doesn’t see the connection. He is home with her more than I am and I think she’s taking advantage of the inconsistency.
YES! This is how I feel too. I NEVER used treats with the three Rotties I trained. They were all great, obedient dogs. Now, I feel like too often Riley sees me not as a leader but as a vending machine. And she’s learned that, if she doesn’t do what I ask the first time, I’ll usually end up getting a treat to lure her into behaving. Non-food rewards (which is how I rewarded the Rotties) don’t mean anything to Riley. She doesn’t want to be petted or praised. Just hand over the goodies, Mom! So who is training who here?
We tried using a Gentle Leader on our 55 pound Lab. Our dog walker insisted on using it and wouldn’t walk him without it. I found that the dog tugged the same amount but he quickly learned to stiffen his neck when doing it. If he lunged after a squirrel or something, he was stymied for a fraction of a second and that might give me enough time to respond. Altogether, not a big handling difference. We eventually stopped using the Gentle Leader because my wife didn’t like how it was squishing his jowls and affecting the shape of his face. We eventually focused on keeping him away from distractions and giving lots of treats on walks to keep his attention on us. He’s not perfect but he tugs less than he used to. With age, he’s even lost some of the prey drive that used to be the hardest to manage.
I’ve got some experience watching smaller dogs who use the front clip harnesses. Both seem to tug incessantly with the harness having absolutely no influence on that behavior.
The back clip harnesses seem to prevent dogs from slipping out of a collar but otherwise don’t seem to do much to improve leash behavior.
I had another friend who used the choke collar. That dog just learned to tug as hard as he could while still taking in the very minimum amount of air he needed to stay conscious.
Tell your partner that’s bullshit. Dogs WANT to be told what to do. Not in a mean shitty way, but they do. Not having structure makes them anxious. Doing what they’re told brings them joy. They’re not like humans that have a ton of other things to think about. They’re just sitting around waiting for the next group activity. Letting them be a mindful member of your group is their thing.
Look at how crazy happy working dogs are. They are so pumped to be working! They love executing what they’re told and the big payoff is praise!
Just like raising kids, you and your partner need to be on the same page with how the dog is trained and worked. It will pay off for all of you, the dog too.
I used to ride the bus with a lady with a service dog - a big Golden Retriever. The dog was wearing a sign saying “Do not pet - I’m working” but it was pleasant just to see the expression on the animal’s face as she sat there waiting to do her thing. She was being Very Good Dog - and she knew it.
Kind of a touching anecdote - they used dogs after 9/11 to look for injured people in the rubble. They found almost none - mostly dead people. And the dogs were getting depressed, because they couldn’t find anyone to rescue. So the handlers got people to go out and hide in the rubble and pretend to be injured, and then sent the dogs out to find them. And that cheered the dogs right up - because “yay! I’m doing my trick and finding the people like I’m supposed to! I’m being Good Dog! Yay!”
Many years ago we rescued two chocolate labs (life change required them to be given up). Their previous owner was a runner and he ran with the dogs so they associated their leashes with running. My son was little back then and the first time he tried to walk them they dragged him (literally) down the street. We got them gentle leaders on the advice of a trainer and within about 2 days they were walking beautifully.
I was told that dogs are like horses and they tend to follow where their head is pointing. The gentle leader when it is pulled just points their head to the ground so they stop. I don’t think this would be at all effective in indoor training.
That said, we currently have a black English lab and she absolutely will not tolerate anything on her face so this didn’t work for her. We are using a pinch collar on her. We have been assured that if used properly they are not at all painful for the dog. This can be used for training inside but we were told if doing so to get a very short leash so they can walk around with it attached but not accidentally step on it. We found though that positive reinforcement works the best for her inside.
He is home with her more than I am and I think she’s taking advantage of the inconsistency. 