Need help teaching my dog not to pull

I have two dogs. One is a 10 month old female pitbull named Molly, and the other is a 3 1/2 year old chihuahua/dachshund mix named Wiggles. Both dogs go on a walk every day (except when we are having storms) and sometimes they go twice a day. Each walk lasts about 45 minutes. My husband is the one that walks them because he works from home and he has the flexibility with his job to take them whenever he wants. Both dogs do really well with him on the walk and he says that Molly rarely ever pulls anymore. On weekends when we go on a walk, my husband will typically have Molly while I have Wiggles, or he will just have them both since they walk really well with him.

Anytime I have tried to walk Molly, she pulls me down the road and I have absolutely no control over her at all. She is super strong and I am not strong at all. I dislike the fact that I can't seem to get her to walk nicely with me. It would really be great if she would walk nicely with a loose leash with me because I'm sure there will be times when the dogs will need to go on a walk and my husband won't be available to take them, such as days like today. My husband and the kids are at the lake fishing and the dogs haven't been on a walk in a few days because we've been having thunderstorms for the last few days. Today is absolutely beautiful so I thought I would try taking them for a walk. I got about 5 houses down and had to come home because there is no way I could handle being pulled down the street for 45 minutes by Molly. We were only gone for about 2 minutes and my right arm muscle is burning with pain from trying to control her and my shoulder feels like it got yanked out of place.

One thing that I noticed when we were out for those few short minutes is that Molly never once had any attention on me at all. It was all about focusing on pulling me down the street as hard and fast as she could. Even when I called her name, she never once looked back at me. I couldn't even just stop because she pulls so hard that she is just dragging me down the street. I had to try as hard as I could to just turn around and start walking the other direction to come back home. I can walk Wiggles just fine because even if he did pull (which he doesn't) he is so small that it wouldn't affect me at all.

What can I do to teach Molly that it is not ok to pull me down the street like she does? What can I do to motivate her to walk nicely with a loose leash? I desperately need help because I don't want this to constantly be an ongoing problem and I would love more than anything to be able to take her and Wiggles out for a walk without needing my husband there to help control Molly.

I think this is your first clue:
You're right, attention is important, she's never going to walk nicely with you if she pays no attention to you. I'm not saying she needs to be looking up at your face the entire walk, but she does need to keep tabs of you out of her peripheral vision and respond when you call her or ask for her to do a cue.

Have you done any clicker training with her? If not, I'd suggest you start. There are lots of articles about how it works, so I won't go into all that here.

To start working on getting her attention on your walks, just sit out in your front yard with her on leash, a bag of good treats, and your clicker. When she looks at you - doesn't have to be looking in your eyes, can be looking at you anywhere - click and give her a treat. If she pulls or does anything else, just sit calmly (if you're sitting down she can't pull you around, you can tie her to a tree or something if that's helpful) and ignore all that behavior; but when she's paying attention to you, click/treat, pet her, talk to her, etc. If she likes toys you can use that as a reward too. Just remember, you're teaching her that paying attention to you gets her good stuff; so don't play with her or pet her while she's not paying attention to you.

For your walks, you'll need a way to control her so that she doesn't drag you around. Dragging you is very dangerous for the both of you, very painful for you, and also VERY FUN for her. I'd suggest a front-clip harness; you can use something like this one:



Her head will go through the left side of the harness; instead of attaching the leash on the D-ring on the back, you'll attach the leash on the loop on the front, on her chest. Use the loop in the picture, on the bottom left of the harness. This way, if she pulls, the harness will turn her back toward you and she will not have the leverage to go forward.

Of course a harness alone will not teach her to stop pulling, this will take practice. I'd suggest starting to practice in your house. Put her on leash and harness just like you're going to walk outside, and walk up and down your hallway or in some other convenient area. Inside she'll be less distracted, and hopefully more likely to pay attention to you. Click and treat whenever she's walking next to you. Start by clicking a lot if she stays with you, every step or two, and then fade it out to every few steps. Once she gets the hang of it in the house, then work in the backyard and frontyard. DO NOT start walking her on the street again until she's doing well with you in your yard, AND she's doing well with her attention exercises in the front yard.

When you do start walking down the street, your main priority should be maintaining her attention on you. Periodically - every few steps, if necessary - stop, sit down with her, and just click attention again. Give her lots of praise and play with her toy if she pays attention to you. It may be a while before you can walk any great distance on your walks, you will probably spend most of your time just spending time with her getting her focused on you. But the more practice she gets in the beginning, the better she'll eventually be.

The first step, because you are struggling to control her at all, is getting some sort of aid just so you can walk her safely while you also work on training. I would suggest you first try a no pull harness like these (there are other brands as well you can look into...I like the front clipping ones better than the ones that clip on the back and tighten):
http://www.premier.com/View.aspx?page=dogs/products/collars/easywalk/description
http://www.petexpertise.com/dog-col...s/halti-front-attachment-no-pull-harness.html

If you are still struggling for control you might want to try a head halter. The reason I don't suggest these first is because many dogs hate having them on, so it'll take some time just to accustom the dog to it.
http://www.gentleleader.com/View.aspx?page=dogs/products/behavior/gentleleader/description


I'd try those before going to other devices like prong collars because they don't involve pain. However if they fail your dog still needs to get walked safely so you might look into a prong collar. They are designed with metal prongs which begin to dig into the dog's neck when they pull which causes discomfort or pain depending on how hard the dog pulls against it.


Whatever you choose you'll still need to train the dog not to pull, the devices are just for control so your dog can't drag you around and so your arm isn't sore afterwards. Since she won't listen she's likely very overstimulated on walks. For starters you may want to get her out more...not just the walks but go to parks and whatnot for socialization, that way the experiences might become less over the top exciting. When you go to parks spend some time playing and exploring but also spend some time just chilling, you can read a book or something while she lies down and chews on a toy or just relaxes. On walks if there is someplace you can stop and sit for a while that might help get her to calm down. Also teach her a few simple commands like sit, down, hand touch, eye contact, or give paw that you can use on the walk to try and bring her back to reality. If she can't listen stand there and wait, don't say it over and over. You might feel frustrated or feel like you look stupid but her brain is all over the place and she needs to calm down, so stand still and wait until she can focus on you and listen. When she does offer a treat (she might not take it) and then continue walking. If she is able to eat treats on walks then you might be able to start using those as rewards for walking loosely right now, but many overstimulated dogs won't eat. This is just to get her to be a bit less spazzy on the walk which will make training easier, both for not pulling and just general behavior outside of the home.

As for the actual pulling the only thing you can do right now, since she's too overstimulated to focus or listen and probably too overstimulated to take treats is to stop or walk backwards when she pulls. You continue standing there or walking backwards until she makes the choice to stop pulling on the leash and puts some slack in it, no matter how long it takes The training aid will be especially helpful with this as the head halter or no pull harness should turn the dog around when she pulls on the end, so she'll face you and be more like to move towards you. Now here you'll get really frustrated because for a while the dog won't know what's going on and will just charge forward again. So you'll repeat again and again and again until she realizes it's the pulling that makes the walk stop. The most important thing here is consistency, if you get fed up and just let her pull she'll learn she just has to be persistent, she won't figure out that she must stop pulling to make the walk go.


The other thing you can do, especially if she's only pulling for you and you don't walk her most of the time, is just start by walking around the yard. Practice loose leash walking around the year every day. Use the same method when she pulls of stopping or walking backwards, but she'll likely do better because it's not an overstimulating environment. She may also take treats int he yard which enables you to reward her for walking with a loose leash. Don't bribe by dangling the treat, just have them in your pocket and when she's doing well (walked loosely for several seconds) give her one. I would not reward for staring at you and walking in heel, that's not what you are asking for, you want her to go potty and sniff, so reward her for doing her own thing, but with a loose leash. Then when she does well in the yard you can move out into the street as if you were starting a walk. don't actually go for one, just work on walking for the first few steps out of the yard, then bring it back. Work up to going further and further and as long as she's able to listen and take treats you're good. Eventually you should be able to go for a walk. You'l also start spacing out how long she has to walk loosely for a treat.


Just remember to be more persistent than the dog!

and keep the receipt for any devices you do buy because you might have to experiment a bit to find what works and what's comfortable for the dog. So you want to be able to return whatever doesn't work...assuming they are returnable after opening.