# Puppy pulls too much?



## Tipz (Aug 10, 2016)

Forrest is 6 months now and horrible at walking on a leash. I know it's my fault for not training him well enough while he was little, I've never raised a puppy before and had to teach them such basic things.
If I have the collar up I have much better control and he'll stop pulling but it often just slides down and he'll pull. He's getting Super strong now too!
Last night for our walk I saw someone wawholking their dog and the leash was slack! It looks so much more enjoyable!
How do I get to that point? I'm going to buy a fanny pack so I can have the treats with me but I just can't imagine Forrest ever being calm enough to not try to pull and just enjoy a stroll... He's so easily excited, anytime hewho sees a person he wants to run up and say hello.
I had a poodle before him but he was from a backyard breeder (I learned my lesson) and was terrified of everything so it was pretty easy to keep him close to me. Forrest has no interest in doing anything but exploring and running and going crazy which will be great once he's trained and well behaved but for now it's just getting frustrating. 
Again, I know I'm the one at fault for this but I'm just hoping for some encouragement on pushing through and basic advice-often I take him to the dog park because he can be off leash and we just don't have to deal with it but I know that's not actually the right solution and I need to get my butt into gear before I lose control of him.
He's actually a very intelligent dog, learns tricks quickly and has a wonderful personality, I just haven't dealt with a puppy before and he has SO much energy and is just GO GO GO in everything he does.
Did/does anyone else get overwhelmed with their puppy? Before him I had a 16 year old American Eskimo I had since I was 9 so this is just... completely different. (While I had the eskie I had the backyard bred spoo for a couple years a number of years ago but he unfortunately passed away)


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## twyla (Apr 28, 2010)

you can search the forum for loose leash walking

here is one link

http://www.poodleforum.com/23-general-training-obedience/17522-loose-leash-walking.html


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I had success first teaching walking with me without a leash, then adding in the leash. Working at home or in a safe enclosed area encourage the pup to walk with you with lots of treats and praise, changing direction and pace and making a fun game of it. Reward constantly - practically every step at first. Working without the leash means you have to really concentrate, and he can't practice pulling.


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## Dina (Jan 24, 2016)

Tipz said:


> Forrest is 6 months now and horrible at walking on a leash. I know it's my fault for not training him well enough while he was little, I've never raised a puppy before and had to teach them such basic things.
> If I have the collar up I have much better control and he'll stop pulling but it often just slides down and he'll pull. He's getting Super strong now too!
> Last night for our walk I saw someone wawholking their dog and the leash was slack! It looks so much more enjoyable!
> How do I get to that point? I'm going to buy a fanny pack so I can have the treats with me but I just can't imagine Forrest ever being calm enough to not try to pull and just enjoy a stroll... He's so easily excited, anytime hewho sees a person he wants to run up and say hello.
> ...


I had issues teaching Hugo to walk well on leash as well... so I totally understand the frustration and feeling like you'll never get there. Hugo is just about 14 months old now and he still has some issues but is getting better each day. One thing that helped us was a harness with a front attachment for the leash. He can easily be redirected when he is focused on something else as well as it keeps him from pulling as much. This is the one we got and I really like it!

https://www.amazon.ca/OLizeeTM-Adventure-Reflective-Adjustable-Protective/dp/B013B3W2IU/ref=sr_1_2?s=pet-supplies&ie=UTF8&qid=1501275110&sr=1-2&keywords=dog+harness

Hugo being unaltered isn't so much distracted with other dogs as much as he was at 6 months but now his main goal is to mark every tree and post in sight LOL. 

It is definitely something you have to work on, we didn't as much as I'd like to while he was still young too. The best way to train this is first to get him tired and get all his energy out (play fetch, train, ect) and then bring the rewards and the harness and trust me you will see a big difference  

Last night we tuckered out our boy and then went for a walk and he healed and walked on a loose lead between my husband and I for the whole half hour walk, with only a few corrections and marking stops!

Best of Luck!!


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

When Javelin was a baby dog I spent most of his first couple of months with me in my yard playing. When he was really interested in what we were doing I would get up and walk/trot/run away from him and he would invariably follow me. This developed incredible and lasting centripetal attraction on his part for me. Not only has it made it easier to teach him focused attention on leash, but has also given him a really reliable recall.

If you look at the thread I have linked to below you will also see a lot of the games I have used to teach him to attend to me and ignore distractions. these games develop loose leash skills too.

http://www.poodleforum.com/24-perfo...-hunting/205393-javelins-road-ring-ready.html


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## Beautiful Blue (Apr 24, 2017)

From the time our Brown Clown was 6 months old I always used a Gentle Leader to walk her. It worked well. The other dog never needed it, but then was taking her cues from the "big sister".

She came to not just tolerate, but sit quietly to have it put on her, because she knew it meant going for a walk. To get accustomed to it = patience, gentleness (not tight), re-positioning it to be in the proper place always (leash loosish, hanging from below) treats, treats.

My husband never used it, to walk the girls in tandem - but he can thank me for their lack of pulling. And the various grandchildren were able to walk the dogs with the GL. All in all I'd say it's a great tool.


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## Tipz (Aug 10, 2016)

Thanks all! Our house is pretty tiny so I might just start off in the backyard when no one is out and nothing is going on. the chase game sounds like the perfect route to take! I'm now excited again about this whole thing  Although currently our landlords are in the garden so I can't take him out yet


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## Tipz (Aug 10, 2016)

Update: Took him to the backyard and he was a superstar! We had so much fun, changed speeds/directions and he seemed to get the game really quickly
My only question is how do we take this to the next step of out on the road? I know if I were to try to get him to do that on a walk it would be setting him up for failure since there are so many distractions so we need to work on it in the yard more, but what do I do for walks in the meantime? Let him keep pulling? That seems wrong but I don't want to put him in a position I know he'll fail at this point in time. The dog park I guess?


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

For walks while you are working on improving his attention with distractions I would stop when he pulls. Pretend to be a tree. He will quickly look back at you when he realizes you aren't going anywhere. When he reorients towards you give him a "good boy" and tell him to come back to you and start over. This is what I did with all of my dogs when they pulled as puppies. My walks took a long time, but never got very far. I am sure my neighbors thought it was all pretty odd, but now my dogs are the most polite loose leash walkers around. Don't worry if you don't feel like there is enough physical exercise in all of that since you will be engaging Forest's brain in a big way.

I am glad the follow me game worked well for you this evening. Keep it up and look up my get it get it and five cookie games. They are great attention builders. In the long run I think you will be happy if you can do this without a harness since some harnesses are not very good for the dog because they restrict movement. Also they can be hard to wean off of since the dog doesn't really learn how to take responsibility for not pulling if they are obsessed with pulling.


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