My Sophie is 10 weeks and pulls so hard on the leash every time I take her out that she chokes herself. I have to constantly pull her away from stuff too cuz she constantly wants to eat bird poop, rocks, weeds, sticks etc. I tried putting a harness in her today and she started biting me hard like crazy snd was clearly in distress. I don’t have a fenced in yard and walking her for a pee is so stressful for me. Today I just had meltdown snd started crying after she bit me. Is a muzzle bad to use just to get a harness in her for her own walking safety? Or will that make her more afraid of me? I fear I’m hurting my relationship with my sweet puppy. I feel so down.
I’ve tried that and it made potty training much harder because she don’t potty in the pen unless she’s bursting at the seams. So it means many more trips out for nothing. I tried leaving her out there until she dies her business but she cries, howls and barks. I’m at my wits end how to take her out and yet protect her. She’s also eating everything in site outdoors!
Here is a Kikopup video on training a puppy to accept a harness. I do realise that puppies are usually much more wriggly and bitey than this one! (I think it has already been trained to accept the harness.) However this approach does work. I was an IMDT trainer for a couple of years (now retired) and I have successfully used this approach with a client and their puppy. The key thing when training is to do it SLOWLY and not try to do the whole process in one session. The main problem is that it will take a few sessions to train Sophie to be ok with having the harness put on so in the meantime I think the outdoor pen for toileting is probably your best option. A muzzle isn't going to help because you would need to train acceptance of that and that will take as long as training her to wear the harness. Wanting to eat things is just the way a puppy explores the world - so redirect to something safe. And the bitey phase will pass. My current dog, Molly, was an awful shark as a young puppy (my arms were bleeding every day!) but she turned into a delightful adult companion and is very well-behaved. So hang in there!
