Best harness for a 6kg dog that pulls

[Radiatar]

We are training a cocker breed dog who is about 6kg. Ddog pulls a lot and is learning heel but so far only manages it for a minute then just tries to resume the sled dog position. Ddog is very good almost perfect recall off lead but on lead we have poor control due to over excitement which we want to improve so we are clicker/treat training all over again but need a decent harness to help us. Ddog is 1 and in the teenage phase!

I don’t like the look of the harnesses that go around the snout and we have no issue with snapping and don’t want to hurt DDog just get some more control during training. But if these get best results we will get one.

Halti do a few different types just wanted opinions. I don’t think a front clip lead will make any difference - ddog does not really mind being uncomfortable and will continue to pull even if lead is tangled underneath the body.

I honestly think a lot of people just love the idea of a dog and don't really think about how much work actually goes into it.

Dogmatic headcollar and a double ended lead. One end clipped on head collar and other on neck collar.

A head collar gives you more control than a harness.

The Dogmatic doesn't ride up to the dogs eyes either like some other head collars.

I had a nose style halti headcollar on my collie and it worked a treat. She couldn't pull me.

I put a regular collar and lead on too as I was scared she'd escape and the head collar one only kicked in if she pulled me so it wasn't cruel. Just like a horses head collar. (Nothing like a horse's bit and bridle)!!

@Radiatar are you within an hour of Winchester? I'll happily show you how to get her walking loose lead.

Looks like I am 2 hours away from Winchester unfortunately

did a walk this evening. I can’t get her to really engage with me. I am stopping and starting and saying heel and keeping lead short but I know she isn’t really focusing on me at all.

@Radiatar Just some idle thoughts from a spaniel owner reading your latest.

Do you feel that she engages with you in other ways? I wonder if working on that – getting her to look at you, you could teach a 'look' command: reward when she literally makes eye contact with you – might help. In that way you're building more of a bond on the floor, as it were (to use a horsey analogy), and then you can take that into lead walking. Sometimes to solve a problem with dogs we have to go back a step and figure out if there's another issue behind it. Yes, she pulls because she wants to get places, but if she's motivated to engage with you more that might set you up with a firmer foundation – at least that's my theory.

There's a pattern game by Leslie Mcdevitt called 123 which might be worth investigating too – again, it's about getting them to engage with you, and not so much the environment. It can be used in lots of situations but often for lead walking.

I agree with this, it’s the lack of engagement when out I need to work on. Her excitement levels are always a level 5 out of 10 day and night but outside it’s level 10000 😂

She is very good at engagement indoors. She is very cuddly and is always looking longingly into your eyes (she is draped across me right now looking at me like 🥰) she asks for ear rubs and these make her swoon. She responds brilliantly to a held out finger (sit, wait, no). She responds to a whistle. She does so many things on one single command (sit, down, bed, wait). She comes back to you off lead on the first call. She is absolutely so clever and responsive. She sleeps on her bed all night no mischief or crying she is so good. Outside on a lead she just loses her mind! She clearly has a strong working dog breed in her so I need to work with this. We did a lot of work on ‘leave it’ as she was guarding toys and this has been massively successful

I did order a harness that will fit better, hers is just cheap and crap, and it has a dual lead.

I think I need to start work on her looking at me and go slowly from there. No kids, a quiet place no other dogs or noise. Stop start. DH is on board (he says) as he is worried she is going to pull someone over

She is not really very toy or food motivated. It would have to be really exciting food for her to get into it and be engaged. All she ever wants to do is chase squirrels.

@Radiatar She sounds fab and I completely relate to being laid on, her eyes looking directly into my soul!

What breed mix is she? I'm not sure what you do on and where you go on off lead walks but (and this would be fun for the kids to do too when you get back to that point) you can play lots of fun engagement games with her, even as basic as hiding behind trees and then getting her to find you. It all goes into the engagement pot. I think starting with looking is great. It's always said about recall that you would make yourself the most exciting thing but I think it's basically true for every other element too: there is super value from being and engaging with you.

I swear by dog pate for treats as my dog is also not food motivated and rabbit fur balls too but we do use them in our gundog work. She will never sit up straighter or listen more closely than when a rabbit ball comes out of my pocket.

We started with a harness for our cocker and found it made him worse. Then we were told that harnesses were not good for cockers due to their bodies being pulled on the wrong places and is bad for joints. We then tried a slip lead (used for most working dogs in the field) and stopped then took a step back at every pull.

Cockers also need off lead time so while recall is being learned you need to hire a training field for training (there are quite a few around) so you can nail that recall.

Oh and a tube of primula cheese with prawns that you squeeze little bits out of worked well too.

No problem with recall, she has a short radius she will go away from you then she always circles back to you, she comes on first call every time she is brilliant off lead that’s where the issue comes in with using a lead I think. She wants to be off lead every single time but it’s not possible.

She is cocker mix we think with terrier. I assume one parent was from a working line as she’s tiny but very fast and strong and lean.

She loves hide and seek and we do a lot to keep her entertained she has to have an off lead walk every day but this makes on lead walks harder and harder as time goes on.

I’ve tried some indoor work with heel and a clicker and a treat and she’s really engaged walking next to me no lead. Step outside even into the garden she will get more excited but still do it. Clip the lead on she just starts bouncing around unhinged

So I got the Halti that gets tighter if they pull and it has a good lead that you can adjust with handles the thing I don’t like about the halti harness is that when she is off lead, it flaps about under the armpits and with a long part on the back! So perhaps I should have got a different one.

The halti makes it easier for me to control her as she is closer to me, it’s more secure on her body, she isn’t actually able to pull as hard as she was. The other harness was just sliding around on her and constantly the lead was getting tangled under her. I imagine she felt that she wasn’t really on a lead at all.

It has a front clip section for the lead but she hates this and won’t walk. She just keeps flipping around if I put this on

I’m not letting her get ahead of me I am doing little constant corrections and stop start. I had a very successful trip this weekend where I think she understood the assignment to some degree, but I don’t think it’s going well with engagement. She just refuses the treats and even spits them out. I’m trying to stand in front of her to get her attention and get her to look at me

I’ve noticed DH lets her charge ahead then yanks her back quite far so I have told him not to do this, don’t even let her get that far in the first place?

We found the same thing with the flappy bit but realised that you can kind of wrap it underneath the back of the harness and tie it in a knot and it stops it getting loose and flapping about.

@Radiatar What is she doing when you try and get her to look at you? And where you are doing it? (Ie what level of stimulation is she already at?) And what treats are you using? Just trying to troubleshoot why she's doing this beyond her just being a brat.

I have one like this, and I spent almost two years building value in treats and toys, which now helps in some situations. So don't give up, pair the food with loads of praise and fuss and you might get somewhere.

I dislike head collars - my first two dogs loathed them - but I will use a slip lead looped over the nose (because it's just as annoying to the dog as a head collar, but much easier to take off mid-walk). There is a Will Atherton heelwalking video on YouTube; I tried what he suggested and it sharpened my twos' heelwork (already decent) up a lot.

There are some really good guides to teaching loose lead walking on the DTAS site on FB. My cocker/Lab cross pulls like a train on a normal lead (and he is 21kg of pure muscle at 6 months old) but it's completely different with a training lead attached to the front and the back - especially when I learned how to use the thing. You need to hold it in such a way that every time the dog pulls, it turns them around. Mine's such a hooligan that his bloody harness turns around (and it's a Perfect Fit) but it still slows him enough that I feel I have some control and I'm not going to dislocate a shoulder - I can hold his lead now with two fingers even if he's pulling.

Once she's slowed like that, you can introduce rewards. Every time mine is anywhere near heel position I give him a treato. If I need him to slow down enough to get the idea, I take a tube of squeezy cheese or Arden Grange pate or similar (the salmon is easiest to squeeze). Even dogs that don't seem food focused will focus for the good stuff. I know @brushingboots does miraculous things with paté chunks (I've seen it!).

One thing is to practice in the house, on your own. Then do it again somewhere quiet outdoors, maybe the garden. I played a 'where's the dog?' game when he was little - if he was behind me in heel position I scattered treats on the floor - and that still works if he's calm enough.

Finally, and this was actually advice I got from @brushingboots , if she's already wildly overexcited you've got no chance. Either you're the only one walking, and you're driving to somewhere to practice, so the dog never gets a chance to pull - or you accept it's going to be a slow process and you mostly work on it when she's already calmer, e.g. on the way back from a walk. That might make it easier to live with the family being a bit hopeless...

I wish we had never used a harness with our girl boxer because it just seemed to encourage the pulling more. She pulled me over and that was when I switched to a head halter.

We got a K9 bridle, miles better.

https://www.k9bridle.com/

Takes work and consistency though, we have her sit every time joggers, cyclists or people walking other leads go past to stop the manic jumping and pulling.

We do let her run around on a field with no other dogs present with the harness and a long line on to practice recall with a squeaky ball that we squeeze in our pocket (she is ball obsessed so it was the only thing that she returns to) and she does often walk better on the lead with the headcollar afterwards once she has burned off some energy.