Can you teach an 18 month old to stop pulling and walk nicely?

[rosesinmygarden]

For various reasons, ddog has never been trained properly to walk on the lead.
I have been ill on and off since shortly after we got her and I have definitely let her get into bad habits for ease. She walks twice a week with our dog walkers on my heaviest workload days but otherwise is at home with me as I work from home full time.
I know it's my fault she doesn't do it yet and am looking for help, rather than people telling me I have made mistakes and am a rubbish dog owner please ... I know all of that that already and am looking for advice and positive suggestions to move forward!

I am trying the not walking forward until she is by my side, but literally we get half a step each time! The moment I move, she rears up/pulls.

I also do magic hands (treats held on palm above her head) and this works, until I give her the treat then she's excited and off pulling and kangaroo jumping again.

She is reactive to movement and has a very short attention span for anything she hasn't chosen to do herself.

I am really hoping we can still teach her to walk nicely as she is causing me injury to my hips, ankles and knees with her pulling (I am hyper mobile). DH hates walking her because she is so badly behaved for him (he lacks patience with anyone) and 15 year old dd would help but I don't think it's wise until she's better trained.

how does she walk with the walker?

no criticism from me. I have a 4.5 month old cocker who is an absolute demon on the lead and does exactly the same things you describe! we have the exact same problem with the treat in that it works till he gets the treat and then he's off and if you do more treats, he then just ignores them

a few things i am working on though I can't say there have been results yet

1. no leaving the house till he's stopped pissing about (as he gets excited before we go)
2. teaching the command 'heel' because part of the problem we think is he doesn't understand what is expected of him on the lead (treat training in general has proved to be pretty pointless with him)
3. walking in the garden practising 'heel' command (with a treat or a ball) but without the lead so you get them to walk to heel without the lead on - this is really a lesson in paying attention to you

I think it's a long old bloody road - mine is supposed to be the age they learn the quickest and he's not learning this quickly at all so I think it will take time

have you tried any of the different harnesses that pull them around when they pull (front clip harnesses)? they were pointless on ours but not sure whether yours will respond better

She walks well for one walker, on a slip lead amazingly! I've tried it and she nearly choked herself. We have an easy walk harness which is front attaching but I also use just a flat lead. Neither makes much difference.
If i didn't think I'd be a distraction I'd ask to observe the walker!

I think you're right, it's just going to take bloody forever.

I do think she associated me with being allowed to pull on the lead.

I have checked with the other walker and she says she walks reasonably well with her. A little bit of pulling but fine once she settled down.

This morning I decided to be very strict and it took us ten minutes to get out the gate. Then some workmen walks up the road chatting and she lost it completely. Jumping and excited and barking. We managed to get to the end of the road before I turned round. Honestly felt like leaving her there this morning ha ha!

No judgement from me either. Our dog is 15 months and still not great on the lead. We have trained him but he quickly slips back into bad habits, the worlds just so exciting to him. No advice sorry but I feel your pain.

I was just wondering whether she walks better when she sees other dogs walking better if you know what i mean - I was pondering getting a dog walker to take puppy out to see if he was better behaved when older dogs were walking nicely on the lead (she'd probably have to wait 20 mins for him to stop jumping all over the other dogs though!)

yes, mine is exactly like that. We had about 20m of marvellous loose lead walking and then he spotted another dog he knows and a child on a scooter and all hell broke loose!

I know, and I love that she is such a happy dog who loves life but oh my goodness, I just want to go for a walk without coming back hurting.
She's our second dog and although the first one was not an angel, she was not as full on as this one 🤣

We regularly walk with my mum and her 9 year old terrier. This is apparently EVEN more exciting....

Yes but I would start with a face halty (it's not a muzzle) it stops them from being able to pull and you can work on walking to heel more easily

Our trainer taught us to just stop, doesn't matter if we don't get to the end of the street but until he's calm and where he should be we don't move. He doesn't even get his lead on until he sits nicely and stops jumping up, I also find it helps if I do some simple training commands, sit stand, lie down etc once he's on his lead but still in the house as he seems to be in a more receptive frame of mind then.

What breed is your pup?

Larger breeds take longer to chill out in experience.

The best thing I can say to you is to carry on being strict but try and have as much off lead time as you can- providing recall is good. I find them much easier to lead walk after they’ve been off lead for a while and we’re heading home. It’s then that you can really over praise their (hopefully) correct or at least better behaviour then the penny will start to drop that this relaxed behaviour is the preferred behaviour.

Try not to be too hard on yourself- we’ve got a running joke in our family that the worst puppy ages are 10-18 months.

If it helps my naughtiest puppy turned into my best behaved dog. I mean trying to eat the lead while attached to it & deciding to chase a squirrel while on lead and me falling over. Her walking is now perfect and I can walk all 45ish KG of her easier than I can my French bulldog at time.

Best of luck!

She's a collie x golden retriever and I have read that they don't fully mature until 3/4 years.

I know I've just got to keep going. This morning was particularly awful. We had to stop every 2 steps and even when u stop she's still having a whale of a time, flinging her self around, barking at random leave a etc.

We hope that if she was a child, we'd have her on Ritalin by now...

Inside the house though, relaxed, cuddly, lovely dog. The outside world is just too much for her at times I think!

Look up ‘loose lead walking’, it is tedious, feels like it takes forever (and you will have to reinforce it forever) and everyone who walks her will need to do the same things but it does work. Huge amount of sympathy from me, I used to be a dog walker and I know how hard it can be. The worst was a hovawart (quite a big dog) who would fling himself around, biting the lead and generally thoroughly humiliate me 😀

No judgement from me. I have a 10 year old spaniel who is a nightmare on the lead still. Once spent 90 minutes walking between two lampposts on the advice of a trainer who said every time he pulled to turn round and go in the opposite direction.
He’s worse on a harness but practically chokes himself pulling on the lead. Very scent driven though so I think that’s part of it.

@rosesinmygarden

She's a collie x golden retriever and I have read that they don't fully mature until 3/4 years.

I know I've just got to keep going. This morning was particularly awful. We had to stop every 2 steps and even when u stop she's still having a whale of a time, flinging her self around, barking at random leave a etc.

We hope that if she was a child, we'd have her on Ritalin by now...

Inside the house though, relaxed, cuddly, lovely dog. The outside world is just too much for her at times I think!

this thread is also making me feel better so thank you for posting

my dog sounds so much like all of yours. It is so wonderful to have a happy dog who enjoys life so much that every interaction is like the best day of his life. He just spent 10 whole minutes wagging his tail so hard and crying for joy (that silly howling they do!) because the man who delivered his food agreed to say hello to him. When he's dragging me down the High Street, I remind myself that that is the downside of his upside (!) but I too am persisting with the training and I do see some small improvements (though small, like miniscule small )

pls do let us know how you get on!

Does she walk well on the lead in the garden?

Does she understand the position she is meant to be in?

In the garden can you walk her off lead but with her in the correct position?

If no to any of the above questions you need to work on the training at home. You need to make sure she is aware of what you are asking her to do.

Literally have a hand full of treats and reward her when her head is next to your bottom. So reward on your bum! Slightly behind you. (This is slightly further back to magic hand) Intially reward her for every time she is in the postion. Then gradually increase the reward to every other step theh every third step etc.

When you can walk a distance in the garden ask your DC for minor distractions in the garden eg them bouncing a ball or jumping up or down _ keep this minor so will depend on the dog.

Then and only then can you expect her to understand what you need outside.

I would also in the meantime work on focus on you outside. Dont initially ask for the heel position just every time she glances at you reward her with a treat.

It sounds like she is self rewarding from the evironment so you need to stand still and just watch her, the second she glances at you reward. This may take time but will make all training in exciting environments easier.

In the short term can you drive her to walks so she has less opportunity to practice the pulling?

I have posted this many times!
We got a rescue springer spaniel who used to drag me down the road.

I trained him out of it. He was 3 and it took a lot of training, and he is still rubbish in a new exciting place, but day by day he is fine.

I don;t know if dog trainers recommend any of this, but anyway. We have about 10 minute walk before I can let him off the lead. It sometimes took us 40 minutes to do that stretch.

We dod the don't walk forward thing. So, no halti or anything, just dog on lead, and walk froward, after one step he is pulling. Stop. Say his name, as he turns to look at you, lead relaxes, and he step forward again. he lunges. Stop, wait for him to turn his head and lead relaxes, take next step.
Literally it was one step at a time.
In fact it was so hard, that I took him out on training walks. Then dh put on different harness/collar and took him to the park and let him off lead for a run. That way the training was separated a bit from the 'walk'

It took about a week to stop the dragging and lunging.
Then he was responding better to the stop and wait. But it was really hard to move forward from that. He didn't get any better. So instead of just stopping and waiting, I started walking slowly backwards, that worked really well.

So probably another couple of weeks from hard pulling to just pulling.

Then 5 months, yes 5 whole long months to get from gentle pulling to loose lead.
Should be faster in a younger dog!

Oh and at some point much later we took him to dog training where we did lots of the things that PollyRoulson posted and that made him even better

Very helpful post from @PollyRoulson.

I’d also add, that it will feel like it’s taking YEARS to make any progress, and you will have some days where it all seems to have gone backwards. But patience and consistency really is key

A 2 point harness like this worked well with my dog

No judgement from me either, and following thread with interest. I have a 6 year-old pointer who pulls like a train on the lead. He's not excitable or barky, he doesn't rear up or fling himself around. He's otherwise a fairly easy dog. He just wants to get where he's going, faster than human pace.

Extensively tried stopping (he doesn't care - happily waits and then carries on pulling), treats (not interested), umpteen head collars (still manages to pull). We've given up really.

just to update the thread and I know we obviously have a puppy so the learning will be quicker

we are starting to see some progress in walking inside the house and in the garden off lead with the command 'heel'. I'm not fully clear he understands the command yet (and he is much more a hand signal/whistle dog than a verbal command dog and I am considering teaching him a whistle command to heel but maybe next stage!).

on the pavement, he will heel for a few seconds now before he reverts to pulling but this is huge progress from where we were before. He usually wears a ruffwear harness out and about but we have put him back in an old rabbitgoo harness which has a v low front clip which essentially means when he pushes forward on the lead, he either spins around or has to hop to keep going as his leg can't jump the lead. We had tried it before the heel training and he simply refused to walk in it (!) but the combination of the heel training and the understanding that there's now a solution that keeps him walking (heel) means he's tolerating it and walking better.

we have a long way to go and we've had to stop all treats other than for doing this to make this progress but there is a tiny amount of hope!

It takes time and patience. I have malamutes they are bred to pull. Train them to walk on a slip collar. Treat the dog when they walk to heel. I use the word back if they pull in front of me. They only time mine pull is usually if a deer or hare run in front. My three year old is perfect. My youngest which is an adopted rescue is bad at pulling at times but I stop dead and turn the opposite way. Keep at it you will get there in the end.

Weirdly, and I don't know how this worked and wasn't even trying, a few weeks ago I got a long lead and attached it to the end of my dog's normal lead for a long walk. Just once. The normal lead is a chain type, and I left it on as then he can't chew through it. Anyway he had a lovely walk, (we practiced recall and 'leave that' and 'stop' and stuff, and now, somehow, he is completely transformed on his short lead (most f the time). As I say I have no idea how or why this happened but it did! He was crap before that.

He's 17 months by the way. bonkers.

If it makes you feel better my retriever is four and still pulls on the lead if she is excited to get to her field. I have started being a bit firmer with her but I expect it will take a while and I need to be consistent. Mainly I'm not bothered if she is walking in front of me but sometimes she goes too fast.