Quick Fixes for a Dog Pulling on the Leash

Are you one of those dog owners who has to deal with the incredibly frustrating behavior of a dog who refuses to listen to you on your walks — who pulls on the leash until you feel like your arm will be pulled off, rather than simply walking quietly by your side.

A dog pulling on leash is a definite signal that they believe they are in charge and that you’re simply there to follow their leadership. As a result, they’ll often pay attention to squirrels, other dogs, new smells, bicycles, kids on skateboards…essentially anything other than you, his owner and handler.

This is a very common issue, but it’s also very easy to fix.

It’s very useful if you have access to videos of professional trainers demonstrating proper dog walking techniques.

But more on this later.

First, we need to cover three extremely easy fixes for your dog pulling on leash issue.

1. The Pack Leader Harness. Unfortunately, most of the collars you can buy today make this problem worse, because they actually make your dog want to pull harder.

You might want to try using something like a Pack Leader harness, which makes it much more easier to correct a dog who pulls on his leash than a typical collar or choke chain. This type of harness fits in exactly the right way around your dog’s body and applies pressure where you need it in order to focus the dog’s attention back on the handler.

You can easily find this type of harness on the Internet. If you do a quick search on Google you should find places that sell it.

2. Learn about clicker training. A clicker, which in my opinion is like the cure-all of dog training aids. It can often be helpful in correcting a wide range of unwanted behaviors in your dog, so I often recommend that my clients look into this training method.

Simply put, the dog starts to expect something positive when he hears the click. Once this expectation is planted in his mind, the dog will almost instantly focus his attention exclusively on you whenever he hears the sound of the clicker.

We don’t have a tremendous amount of space in this article to go through the ins and outs of clicker training, but there are plenty of resources where you can learn the basics.

When correcting leash pulling, a clicker is useful because you can use it to stop a dog who is focusing on something other than you, and redirect that energy back to you, his handler.

3. Food reards. Any dog owner knows the power of the food treat to mold a dog’s behavior. When using treats to stop a dog’s leash pulling problem, what you basically want to do is introduce the food to your dog, and then let the dog use his naturally powerful sense of smell to direct his attention and his movements in the direction you want.

This is a little bit difficult to demonstrate without actually seeing it done, so let’s cover that right now.

Thankfully, stopping a dog from pulling on his leash isn’t all that difficult. I’ve been on a lot of TV programs where I’ve shown dog owners these very same techiques, so I’d like to show you a complete video that reveals exactly how to do this in less than half an hour.

First, check out this dog pulling on leash video on my website, where you’ll find a full video that reveals how to use a pack leader harness, a clicker, or food rewards (or all three) to teach your dog to walk calmly at your side and always listen to what you want him to do.