I'm getting a little frustrated I'm finally making progress with Shamas' walking training- I use a front-clip harness, and have accomplished a relaxed walk most of the time. He's only pulling on the way home, and is ignoring some dogs, reacting a lot less to others. He's checking in for treats, and sitting at corners. Trouble is, my family sees this improvement and wants to walk him now My daughter wants his lead on the back of his harness, and lets him go wherever he wants. She figures she can hold him if he pulls, and he "needs his freedom" I don't like to let her walk him anywhere but parks and trails, because I don't feel that he's trustworthy on a 4-6 foot lead near the road. I'm concerned that this will negatively impact his training, which is going so well. I usually walk him front-clip, with about 3 feet of lead. My husband prefers a firm heel--I honestly am fine with this, and have suggested putting a 1foot lead on his collar, which can be used when hubby walks Shamas. Trying to keep a firm heel on the front clip pulls it to the side, and hinders Shamas movement. This morning I looped the normal lead onto my belt, and took Shamas out on the 1 foot lead to see how he'd do. He didn't pull, except when crossing the road, so I think he can handle collar walking after all of the training we've done.
So I've come up with a solution to this issue: I've been walking Shamas in all of the ways that the family likes to walk him, with the same rules no matter where he's clipped. The result is that we can now clip him to front, back or collar and walk him nicely down the street. Obviously the front clip is a better control if he's rowdy and pulling, but it's being used less and less now that he's learning that there are more comfortable options. Hes starting to clue in that pulling means the clip gets moved to the front, and his walks are more relaxed.
Saw your reply to yourself and thought that was good thinking. Sometimes it's easier for us to change than them to change. Lol.
Agreed. And since the end goal is to be able to walk him with a simple collar, this seems as good a time as any to start that. The harness was a response to his pulling and lunging when we first got him, but he's getting very good about that now. Only gets bad when he's very excited-like today when we took him to a new park with trails, and a ton of new smells. He was ALL over the place, and I put him on the front clip in case he decided to go after a rabbit or something. After he settled down a bit, I moved him to back clip, but left him on the harness because I'd have hated for him to get his neck yanked if something caught his attention and he went "prey drive" 95% of the time, we're on sidewalks, and Shamas is only REALLY reactive to small dogs now. He's got a threshold of 100 feet or so-if he can see it, his tail goes up and he's heavy breathing..less than 100 feet, and his hackles go too. Get down to 50, and he's trying to get at it. we usually are able to turn onto a different block at about the 100-90foot mark, and he relaxes again.
He's 5. We got him Untrained from the pound on October 27th, last year and it's taken some extensive work to teach him walking manners
I can only applaud your diligence and patience! Since you seem to be the main training person for Shamas then you get to make the decisions. It appears that you are making good progress and he's a bright dog. Keep up the good work, there's nothing better than a walk with your dog!
