Thank you guys, I think I'll go for a mendota type one, seems like the best for our purposes. My parents will be able to put it on without having to bend over too much which is good, my mom has awful arthritis and slipped discs and fibromyalgia, the less bending and maneuvering she has to do the better (and faster).
Now that we are getting a bunch of UPS guys knocking on the door for us to sign for packages the more we need an easy way to get him away from the door. My brother didn't even bother answering for the UPS guy the other day because he didn't know what to do with the dog. I have since instructed him to leash him FIRST, open door carefully with Tucker on a very short leash in case the person is standing with the outer door open, tell person to hold on one second (with hand signal in case they can't hear you over the barking
), go put tucker in the bathroom, come back and tend to person. He had to do it yesterday while we were out and didn't say anything bad happened so that's good. The slip leash would just make it all go smoother I think, especially for my arthritic mother who has trouble bending and getting his collar on.
Don't forget you can always loop a leash through itself and have an instant slip lead, for the time being if you need it.
However...you might want to work on really solidifying a sit or down stay, or send to a mat. Regardless of the dog's opinion of the scary person at the door, if you have those commands solidified, you should be able to override it if you take some time teaching it.
I have used his leashes as slips before but his current leash is a lupine so it has the big handle on it and so that part would be up against his neck and I feel like it wouldn't be as secure, it doesn't stay tight because the handle doesn't want to bend easily. We do have an old leash we can use if we have to though until we get an actual slip lead.
Normally I'd agree with a solid stay of some sort, but I honestly don't think any amount of training would persuade him to stay in the face of someone at the door, NOTHING is more important to him than going after strangers at the door. I don't know how much thinking he's even capable of doing when someone is at the door. It is by far the absolute worst he gets, the level of frantic is frightening. In the summer when we leave the wooden door open so there is just the glass door there, there have been times when I didn't notice the mail person was here and he runs to the glass door and I'm pretty sure if he were larger he would go through it to get her.
