No offence intended - didn't mean to tut or jump down your throat. A pulling dog is a real pain (try two at a time on one hand) and we all should go with what works for us. Personally, carrying a stick would hamper me when I am out, although I do know many people find them useful and some trainers do suggest the method you describe, but it is not for me. By the way I do raise my voice to my dogs and manipulate them (physically and mentally) to get them to do what I want - If I don't they will probably manipulate me more than they already do. I hope I am not a namby pamby, although I may be a bit pretentious !!!

With Bran (hound dog, used to be hunted on a harness) all the usual ploys failed. So I resorted to the Newspaper Trick. In this method when the dog moves ahead of you, you immediately pound the bejasus out of the garden wall beside you, saying norty norty wall. (Obviously you have to choose your spot). The dog glares suspiciously at the wall and carefully walks beside you in case he needs protecting from the Wall Monster again.
Actually, it`s probably best you don`t use this. I got a couple of motorists stop and bellow abuse at me - cruelty to walls, perhaps? It only works with extremely thick dogs btw. I got the idea from a friend who uses it stop her rescues marking indoors. She wallops the spot where they do it and they keep clear of it.

disclaimer - at no time is the newspaper aimed at the dog. Said method must not be used around nervous dogs or pedestrians. Any damage to walls is not my fault, it`s yours for following some mad womans advice on tinternet.

Sometimes I think I have a bit of a girl crush on you ;o)

I've had this problem with Monty who is 30kg of Boxer and it makes any on-leading walking a frustrating time!

The main reason he does it is because I let him get away with it when younger and didn't teach him heel from an early age.

The second is that we rarely walk on the lead as we usually put him in the car and drive to the fields or the river or somewhere. It's only in the dark winter months that we have to do road-walks that i've really decided to persist at doing something about it and my method's so far seem to be making an improvement.

Basically I get his favourite treat and cut it into 5 or 6 small-ish pieces then we set out on our walk. We walk through a housing estate with many places that we have to stop and cross the road. Inbetween these crossings I take a piece of the high-value treat in my hand, i make him sit and look at me and show him the treat.

I then lower the hand with the treat to my side and walk on with him focussing on my hand and use the word "heel" and tap my side to try and teach him what the command is and what he has to do to get the treat. If he can walk nicely to heel from the majority of the distance between crossings he gets the treat. As he is walking nicely alongside i also give him plenty of verbal praise (people look at me like i'm mad but who cares!)

We've being doing this every day without fail on walks for a week now and the difference is starting to become noticable in a positive way. It is also teaching him to listen to me when on the lead as he has a habit of ignoring me.

It may not be the book method or the recommended way but it works for me and Monty and it is making an improvement.

Good luck with training your Lab and keep us updated!

Hi Emma pulling seems to be one things lots of people have a problem with. I think the problem starts when a puppy first goes on the lead, people are so pleased it is walking at all they don't set the required pace.

If we look at it logically dogs don't walk at the same pace as humans they trot along at a much faster pace than we do so they are not really pulling just walking faster while being restrained by the collar and lead .
If they are going the same rout to the same place to be let of the lead that encourages them to go faster too because they are eager to have a run ,vary the rout if you can.

Things like choke chains (which I hate) can actually make the pulling situation worse, as the collar tightens and becomes painful the dog pulls even more to escape the pain.

I don't like extension leads either, you have no control over a dog when it is wearing one.

If the dog walks fast and consequently pulls people tend to walk faster too in order to keep up which is in effect rewarding the unwanted behaviour. If you stop when the dog is walking too fast the dog will have to stop too, call it back to your side and give praise when it comes then set off again at a very slow pace praising the dog when it walks at a good pace stopping when it pulls. You can also use a treat in your hand to lure the dog to your side. It take ages and lots of patience for this method to work but it does eventually.

Here is the method explained in more detail by the APDT.

http://www.apdt.co.uk/documents/Looselead.pdf

ETA Emma I would never do as the person above suggests, your dog isn't a bad dog it is walking at its natural pace and just being a dog . Remember in order to get the best from your dog it needs to trust not fear you, the last thing you want is for your dog to associate you with pain.

oh dear, here is another thread where someone is made out to be some horrible monster who beats her dog why does this always need to happen? the slightest thing someone said, is made out to be 100x worse than what it is... swinging a walking stick in front of a dog, is not hitting the dog with it... the way i thought of it, was when i was at school everyone used to swing on their chairs (on the two back legs), we used to get told so many times from teachers not to do it. but did anyone ever listen? no, we only listened when we fell off the chair... that was our own fault, and we only learnt from it once we had done it...

me too, there are different ways to train or work with a dog. some methods work for some people, and some dont. all dogs are different, so no one thing will work for them all.

ha, excellent!

I use this too when walking dogs, it can take a while at first, but once they've 'got it' it takes less the following times...I especially like keeping them guessing by going round all sorts of objects, it's amazing how much more focused the dog is on me because he has no idea where he's going!

Oh when will some of you people learn.

It isn't a question of the dog pulling on the lead, that is not the problem.

THE PROBLEM is it is ignoring YOU and not doing what you request.

You don't have a good relationship with your dog.

Does your dog walk to heel off lead, if not, why not. Teach it to, then it is only a small step to get it to walk to heel on lead.

Flynn will walk to heel off lead but not on a lead and for me, it's no small step making that transition!

To me, that proves that in my case, he knows what the word "heel" means, he just ignores it because he's much rather get to where he wants to be.