I would like some help with my dog. I have a 2yrs and a few months old intact male lab. We got him as a puppy and for the most part he is well behaved. In my community and in some other areas where we frequent he walks reasonably well. He knows when he is getting too excited on the walk and slows down when asked to. If he sees something exciting and should I also notice that object ( rabbit or deer etc) and I ask him not to react, he will not pull any more. Where I need help is when we go to our downtown where there have been hundreds of dogs that have peed on stuff. The scent is so overwhelming, that my lab pulls so hard to go and sniff and pee on everything that I have a hard time overcoming him. Its painful to walk even a few steps and I have him on a martingale type collar and I actually worry that hes getting strangled by pulling so hard. I am not sure how to teach him that its not correct to pull to get to where he wants to go and sniff. I do not mind him sniffing all he wants but he cannot pull my shoulder out in trying to do that. He is on max excitement at this location and not sure how to tamp it down. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks, Raj
Hi Raj, welcome to the forum Walking on a loose leash is a skill which requires lots of concentration and impulse control on your dog's part. The smell of lots of other dogs is an enormous level of distraction to overcome, so you need to reinforce loose leash walking in less distracting environments for a much longer period first. This article has more information about troubleshooting loose leash walking problems. That article also has advice for managing a pulling dog until he is trained. Please bear in mind that here on the forum we are firmly opposed to punishment based training, and this includes using an incorrectly fitted martingale collar. Correctly used, martingale collars should not squeeze the neck at their shortest length (they are designed to stop a dog with a narrow head from being able to back out of their collar, not to be used as a punishment by squeezing the neck). You can read more about why punishment in dog training doesn't work here, and our complete forum guidelines here. I hope those articles help!
