Hi everyone, As I said in a different thread and conversation somewhere, Muprhy will be able to go out on Friday and so I have been trying to get him used to a harness and lead. However someone suggested it would be better to try and get him walking well on a lead with a collar rather than harness to begin with. So, I bought him a new collar (his old one that he had from the breeder only clipped shut so if he pulled his collar would open). But when I put the lead on he seems to think it is a game of tug of war and won't leave the lead alone and stop chewing it. He won't even let go for treats most of the time! I know it's best at his age to try and do off lead work in fields and things but in the last couple of days when he's been in our front garden with us he has wandered off and even if we get his attention and he looks at us and we run away he doesn't follow! So I'd be really apprehensive about letting him off anywhere not totally secure! He recalls well in our back garden but nowhere else. I thought about using a 10m training lead which we have but will probably have the same problem of him chewing it! Sorry iv written rather a lot :-\
Re: Stopping chewing the lead I think there are a couple of things that might help, at least, they helped me. The video on the main site "let your puppy off the lead" - have a look, this really helped me. Your puppy won't run off, even if he hasn't learnt to come to you yet. And if you look for a thread about Dexter pulling you'll see a discussion where Pippa explained the uses of a harness: to keep a puppy safe before s/he has learnt to walk on a lead. She also explained a bit how she teaches a puppy to walk without a lead first. And uses a harness with a training lead. I'm on my iPad right now, I'll try to find the thread later. For me, an inexperienced owner - of course it might be different for more experienced people - putting a collar on Charlie not only immediately contributed to a pulling problem (he didn't know how to walk on a lead and immediately thought collar = pull) but was dangerous for him. It was truly frightful to have a small puppy doing a fish on the end of a line impression with a small strap digging into his soft throat and neck. Thankfully, I got it sorted quickly, and my puppy is safe and (mostly) walking very nicely on his lead. I am not sure I'm going to go back to a collar at all and certainly not yet. We are still learning to walk nicely past distractions, and when he occasionally lunges towards a person or another dog, I prefer a large padded harness stops him suddenly, not a collar. Another caveat this is just my interpretation of the best advice for the inexperienced! Others might have more experienced takes on it all.
Re: Stopping chewing the lead The threads are: "Collars" on 1st July in labrador chat And "zig zagging on the lead" on 10th July in labrador chat And "which lead" on 5th April in labrador puppies None deal with actually chewing the lead (which might stop, I suspect, when the pup has other things to interest him on a walk), but these all helped me with first lead walks (unfortunately, I didn't read them first, but very soon after thankfully). Hope helpful!
