To harness or not to harness?

[Stelllastar]

My Labrador puppy will have her first walk next Friday ( exciting !!) but can’t decide whether to start her off on a harness or clip the lead straight onto the collar.

[Wolfiefan]

Honestly the first walk is not for very long and your pup may not actually want to walk on a lead at all. Practise at home.
What you do want to do is get your dog used to as many different sights and sounds as you can.

[Stelllastar]

wolfiefan yep she’s been carried out and about (even though she’s getting bigger by the day and my arm went numb today). I’m not talking specifically about her very first walk just asking whether a harness is useful on their first few walks/ any walks or should I go straight in with collar?

[Wolfiefan]

I know someone with a lab pup who opted for harness. Something breed specific about them having problems if they pull on lead? If you go for a harness then one that has two rings is better. Perfect fit one you can buy individual pieces in a bigger size as pup grows. Be very careful about how it fits. The number of dogs I see in really badly fitting harnesses is shocking.

[florentina1]

I would get the Perfect Fit harness. You measure your dog and buy one that is tailored to his size.

[adaline]

I would start as you mean to go on - so how are you going to want to walk him in 6 months, a year, two years? If that's on a collar, start with that. If it's going to be a harness, then go with that.

We use a harness because ours pulls something dreadful and we wanted to reduce the pressure on his neck. We also found that if he pulled while on his collar, then the friction rubbed the fur away.

He has a Ruffwear with two connection points, one on the back and one on the front for better control when he pulls.

I'd also consider how she's going to travel in the car - ours has a seatbelt that clips onto his harness, and there's no way would I clip anything like that onto his collar because of the risk of injury if we were in an accident or had to brake suddenly for whatever reason.

[Girlintheframe]

We got our pup a harness. Really because he was small and didn’t want to do anything that may hurt his neck like pulling. Through puppy classes we have learnt how to teach him to walk next to us so now we just use the collar.
We got our harness from the vet think it’s Ancol. It wasn’t very expensive.