Haltie??

[BaconAndAvocado]

Met a dog owner who said this was a game changer for their Labrador when it was pulling on the lead. Her dog is 13 months old.

Our Lab is 8 months old and pulls on the lead despite lots of training.
He’s already a big boy and it’s becoming hard to take him on a walk.

Does anyone have any experience of halties?

Most balanced trainers will tell you it's trial and error .

Ultimately these options are all just part of a toolkit - somethings will work for your dog some won't .

Watch southend dog training on Instagram he's brilliant

I asked my trainer about this today and she was not a fan. She said a good chest/body halter is so much better with a central ring not a front ring.

I use headcollars on all of mine. They are all very well behaved but I would never forgive myself if something happened and I couldn’t hold them. They are all large breeds.

I can walk 3 horses together in headcollars so no reason I wouldn’t be able to hold dogs which are a tiny bit of the size. There’s a reason we don’t lead horses in harnesses

@3ormoredogs

I use headcollars on all of mine. They are all very well behaved but I would never forgive myself if something happened and I couldn’t hold them. They are all large breeds.

I can walk 3 horses together in headcollars so no reason I wouldn’t be able to hold dogs which are a tiny bit of the size. There’s a reason we don’t lead horses in harnesses

I think you make a valid point. I’ve always used a Halti on my dog and it feels very similar to the control you have with a horse. I have no idea why people don’t like the Halti for a dog.

The reason people don’t like Halti or head collars on dogs are that they teach the dog not to pull by causing discomfort or pain. I have used them for a very short time (two weeks) to train a large dog when I was recovering from a broken leg but only because I couldn’t physically hold the dog.

The best way to teach lead walking is to reward the dog heavily for being in the right place while you are walking. This needs to be practised for short periods in quiet places where the dog is under threshold. Basically you are rewarding the dog for practising as stay in relation to you no matter where you are. I walk my three large strong dogs holding the lead with one finger because I have built up the time and prevented arousal using this method.

Anyone or anything that can change behaviour quickly is using some pressure or fear to create such quick results which will impact your relationship with your dog.

Not sure what I’m going to do yet but thanks everyone for all the advice.

I started using a Gen Con lead 4 days ago and it's been an absolute game changer.

I can now take my 8 month old Lab for walks with no pulling and no injuries to my joints.

It was getting to the stage where walks were becoming frustrating, painful and a negative experience.

So pleased 😊

Head collars are a bit controversial. But preferable to uncontrollable beastie on the lead in my experience! The Canac one (gentle leader?) is a bit less bad for pulling the dog's face than the Halti

Oops didn't RTFT. Glad you found a solution OP!

@iloveewanthedreamsheep

Head collars are a bit controversial. But preferable to uncontrollable beastie on the lead in my experience! The Canac one (gentle leader?) is a bit less bad for pulling the dog's face than the Halti

I've not heard of that one. I spoke to lots of dog owners who recommended the Gen Con. not sure if that's the same as a Haltie?

@iloveewanthedreamsheep

Oops didn't RTFT. Glad you found a solution OP!

Me too!!!

With my Labrador it completely worked
Now have huskies and didn’t make a difference

The best way to teach lead walking is to reward the dog heavily for being in the right place while you are walking. This needs to be practised for short periods in quiet places where the dog is under threshold. Basically you are rewarding the dog for practising as stay in relation to you no matter where you are. I walk my three large strong dogs holding the lead with one finger because I have built up the time and prevented arousal using this method.

Tried this with dog treats, cheese, ham, little sausages, chicken and now roast beef - our cocker has zero interest in food on walks and will completely ignore anything on offer. Pulls, jumps, twists and is a total nightmare (we have completed 3 training classes). Now I am reading this thread with interest in trying a new lead.

@Jayne35 I've used a Halti, a harness, a gencon and a figure of eight on our working retriever, the gencon and figure of eight I thought was making a huge difference as it stopped her trying to chase traffic that went past us. I took her nose out of the loop one day and quickly realised it was just masking a problem. Ive used purely positive based training for two years now and none of it has worked thus far. And she is not scared of traffic, she simply likes to chase things that move fast. She also doesn't give a single fuck about food. I could have a fillet steak in my pocket and she wouldn't look at me. I took her to a more 'balanced' trainer who used treats for walking past distraction and taught us about lead pressure when she is pulling and what to do. She is making progress. She used to spend most of the walk trying to get her nose loop off and she clearly hated it. The answer isn't always in treats I have found sadly

Well hello @BaconAndAvocado, been absent from the puppy threads for a bit!

We also have this issue with a very strong 9 month old .. tried collar and lead (nope), halti (ok but lots of shaking and trying to evade it) and in the end gone back to boring training and stopping every pull, plus walking on a harness made by halti which is a Y shape at the front but sits lowish on her front legs. Bit hard to describe....It doesn't really exert much pressure and wouldn't be an elbow dysplasia risk, but just the sensation of having something impeding the front legs seems to calm her down. The lead clip goes on the back.

this one

@tabulahrasa

“Another dog walker suggested a Figure Eight lead??? Anyone had experience of this?“

Again, they tighten - and may stop your dog pulling, or I’ve seen dogs carry on pulling but graze their face where it tightens... anything that works like that is a bit hit or miss really, why do you think nobody uses choke chains anymore? It’s because they don’t actually always work, some people don’t care whether tools are aversive or not if they work, but they don’t is the thing, not on a lot of dogs.

Chances are your dog is uncomfortable now when pulling but does it anyway, nothing is exactly comfortable when a dog is pulling hard.

The quickest fix is a harness with a front d ring to attach a lead to and a load of training.

A harness with a front ring doesn't work for every dog. It just allowed my dog to pull harder!

Hi Goawayangryman
Yes I've not been on that thread for a while.
Although as Newboy is behaving like a numpty a lot more, I might be back 🤣

Well, the Gencon figure of 8 was going sooo well....until today when he kept trying to get it off....I used a normal lead on the way home and he was actually ok.

Not sure why he suddenly decided after almost a week of great walks with the Gencon that he'd had enough 🤷🏼‍♀️