Easy Walk Harnesses

[darlingdog]

I've tried to get the loose leash walking thing right - and for some reason I am hopelessly incompetent.

I'm going to wait for Steve to come to Adelaide for one last try - and if I'm still hopelessly incompetent after he's shown me what to do - I'm buying a harness!

Colosmo I agree - For those of us who are too dumb (or have dogs who are too challanging) I think it's probably a great tool

But Huski I also agree with your point that a trainer should be able to get the dogs walking lose leash - even if that doesn't translate to the owner being able to do it.

Well if Steve can teach me he can teach anyone

As far as the harnesses go I see no problems with them. If it means that an owner can walk their dog then that can only be a good thing.

But my concern with a harness is how do you correct the dog or get their attention if need be? I'm sure I could put Kei on a Sporn/no pull harness and he would find it aversive enough to walk on a loose leash BUT when he sees another dog he goes into complete overdrive. At the moment I can give him a couple of light pops to bring his attention back well before he gets to the screaming, lunging stage (and believe me, if he gets to that stage he will pull through anything -including a prong collar). But how could you do this with a harness? In Kei's case I think he would break it if I couldn't bring his attention back and he got too worked up!

Re being able to break it, I don't think that the cord would break but certainly the plastic click clack thing ( for want of a better word !) might. On mine where this thing clicks together there are also 2 dee rings so I put an extra clip on these just to be sure so it then has that clip as back up if the original one fails.

[Aidan]

But my concern with a harness is how do you correct the dog or get their attention if need be? I'm sure I could put Kei on a Sporn/no pull harness and he would find it aversive enough to walk on a loose leash BUT when he sees another dog he goes into complete overdrive.

Some of us do it without corrections, that said you can give a correction using virtually anything. What might be your issue is that your "correction" is actually a "cue" that Kei is conditioned to. The solution is a double-ended leash attached to whatever collar you normally use.

[Cosmolo]

You can correct on a front connecting harness, but as Aidan said- you may not need or want to. They're not suitable for every dog though and certainly not for resolving every issue.