I haven't posted for awhile but, my Molly is doing wonderfully. She is now almost 14 months old and full of love and life. Her training has gone well and she is 90% compliant - we are still working on polite greetings (she loves to jump up) and calm walking - which is where the harness comes in. Molly weighs close to 70 pounds and I weight 112 - if she sees someone she loves and gets overly excited she pulls me. What I've been using to control this behaviour is a gentle harness that does up around the shoulders and the leash clips to the front and onto the collar. She knows that she can't pull me with this on. I have had several people tell me that she should learn not to pull without using a harness. They say that I am controlling the behaviour not changing it. To me it seemed like a gentle way to get control when I need to.
Molly gets lots of love and exercise - I have her out every day in one of the several amazing off leash parks in my city - she runs with me, chases her ball and plays with other dogs for at least 1 hour every morning usually closer to two hours. We go out again at lunch (I work from home) and again in the evening and this is when I am more likely leash walking her.

I'd love to get the opinion of other people. Should I stop using the harness? Or is it okay?

Thanks a lot, gang.
Molly's mom.

Harnesses are OK, but you should still train your dog to walk nice whether she has a harness or a collar on. <- I'm saying this, because I used to dogsit for a neighbor who never trained his Brittany how to walk on leash. The dog had to wear a harness, because he broke collars. And walking him with a harness really hurt the hand the little guy pulled so much. o_I

I see nothing wrong with using a harness whenever you take your pup out. Dunno how others feel about it....

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All but chloe wear the harness when going for a walk, it helps me out with controlling two dogs at a time, we also go with just collar and they do pretty good on just short walks without any distractions..like other dogs or kids they want to greet!

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I use a harness for Morgan & Buddy, its much easier for me to walk them. I find that it is harder for me to control them on the collar when they get excited. I did have a head collar for Morgan, it worked very nice, but it ended up breaking.

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We've always used no pull harnesses. My Bridge boy Sam pulled quite a bit when he was young, so we started using the no-pull. After a few years, he could walk off lead and would not leave our side. I think he just outgrew the enthusiastic stage where every thing he passed was a party. Ike's not yet four and we still need the no-pull for him, though Ike's a 'life is a party' kinda dog so I can see him always needing the harness on walks.

We were told the same thing, 'he won't learn that way', but Sam did learn...or he just calmed down. Either way, we were happy, he was happy, and all was well with the world.

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Miss You Sam...
Aug 1, '94 ~ Jan 8, '07
http://www.scrapblog.com/viewer/vw_f...px?sbid=483622

When I adopted Danny in 2007, I knew that walking three dogs could be a challenge, so I purchased the Easy Walk Harness for all three of my dogs. Over time, the two goldens have been weaned off from their harnesses and both walk beautifully on a flat or martingale collar. I attribute this to their learning that they couldn't pull with the harnesses on and so naturally started walking on a loose leash when I was walking them.

Jasper graduated to the collar first, but Danny wasn't very far behind. Jasmine is still walked with a harness. She wants to be in the lead on our walks, so she keeps tension on her leash, always has and always will (she's almost 10 years old). I alternate her between the Easy Walk and a Sporn type harness.

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Mine were a trial on walks and the no pull harnesses were blessings. I had to wean them off the harness for their CGC test and used a regular collar.

Kirby is still a trial, I now use a pinch collar for her, pulling isn't that much of an issue as her constant bouncing. She gets excited and bounces up & down for half the walk. Doesn't matter how long we go, she NEVER runs out of bouncing energy.

Darby is wonderful, I use a pinch collar for him but he doesn't pull. I trained him with a six foot lead looped in front of his chest. I leave slack in the loop and can use it as sort of a harness is he pulls, but he walks right next to me with no problem. This method I use a lot in training too, Kirby's Rally instructor showed me this technique (I think it is a horse training method - not sure) but it is very effective for dogs. Although on walks, Kirby tends to bounce out of it....

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Vanessa, Darby & Kirby

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There are a few things going on. 5-10 years ago the advice was "Dogs can pull harder when wearing a harness. Harnesses are not good for teaching a dog to walk nicely." But that was in reference to back-clip harnesses and now there are all sorts of front clip harnesses and head halters and other gear. Many now say "That just controls the dog. He should be able to walk without it"

You really don't need to get rid of the harness unless you want to, provided your dog is walking well. If you're a smaller person or less able to hold onto your dog in the face of a bunch of squirrels/deer/small children... KEEP USING IT! We do NOT want you to get hurt! We do NOT want your walks to be super stressful!

Thank you for all the advise. It seems everybody basically feels the same as I do. Once again, you've put my mind at ease. Molly and I both appreciate it!