Why is my dog pulling on his lead and trying to make friends with everything?

Hi :smt100
I am really struggling with my dog. Kane is 6 months old, a loughlander (which is a bernese with throwbacks to newfies) and is really fantastic, house trained, friendly etc. My main problem is that when we take him for a walk he pulls on his lead and tries to make friends with anything that moves, as he is such a large size he is very strong and i struggle to keep hold of him. When people or a dog passes he pulls as if trying to get to them, however i know this isnt a vicious action as when he reaches the offending object he tries to make friends and look to them for attention. He is also showing worrying tendancies to start running after moving cars which, as you'd expect, is a big worry for us as we do not want Kane to get hurt. His behaviour is fine when he is within our home or in our garden, even walking him on our own land isnt a problem. Its just if we go near a road or on a normal pathway this behaviour starts and as you'd imagine this is very limiting. We dont know how to go about fixing this behaviour and would be grateful of any advice. We were thinking maybe he's lonely at home and would want a new dog friend or maybe walking him with a head harness would help?
Any advice is much apprecaited as we are really worried about this :smt102
Thanks

Does he get to socialise with other dogs off lead ? All sounds pretty normal behaviour for a 6 month old pup. Sounds like you need to practice his heel work and desensitize him to cars. A head collar does usually stop them pulling excessively but i'm sure one of the leo owners or newfie owners could give you more advice.

Been there, done that and bought the T-Shirt Fortunately Cassie is a small Collie and we could just about keep control of her. Took some serious training and as a last resort we purchased a remote control training collar which sprays compressed air to distract the dog temporarily. She used to spin and lung/bark at cars continually and it was a nightmare. We tried all sorts of head collars which do work for a lot of dogs but not for her. We are still in the process of working on the training, although the spinning/lunging has stopped. Persevere with the training, he's still only 6 months old so very much in puppy mode. Hope this helps! By the way Cassie is 18 months old now. Deep breaths and keep up the training, it will get better!

Been there. Sounds like you've got an adorable big pup that wants to say hello to anything that moves!!!!!!
A head collar may help, there are lots availabe, they can distract your dog's attention away from the exciting 'new' think and onto you for long enough to reward your dog when he behaves himself and focuses on you.
Teach your dog the 'leave' and 'look' commands, I've found them invaluable in those situations...if you need help with that, there's a couple of articles by shadowboxer I think...or search through the training threads!!! Or PM me!!!!!!

Most of all ( hard as it is) don't tense the lead as soon as you see something coming, i know that's easy to say, but at 6 months he's still impressionable and you don't want him to start thinking 'oh...when i see another dog I get told off and yanked on my lead and i don't like that...and these humans seem to worry...must be something to worry about so I'll bark/growl etc....' You don't need that thrown in.
Your pup sounds lovely...just being a pup...and starting to get hormonal too no doubt!!!!!! Any chance of some piccies....sounds beautiful!!!!!!

Hi
i have 2 leonbergers who are 2yrs old and i've been thro this with both of them, still am with 1,
i've always used a dogmatic and canny collars. these calm them down and give you more control without having your arms pulled off. used with training as mentioned above they do work very well and give you more confidence when out.
do take him training as this helps with socialization as well.

these breeds are lovers of everything and will get any attention they can find.do you find that you get stopped by everyone? as good as that is, it does cause more problems cause the dog gets fussed and then he wants more.
try talking to people at a slight distance so the dog cant get fussed and explain why your doing this. i've found this does help. also only let him be fussed ONLY when he's sitting calmly, this will also be his reward. try this with other dogs as well.

good luck, i'm with you all the way

julie