[jenlaur]

...at walking my dog? Riley is 6 months old. She has been learning to walk on a loose leash since she was about 12 weeks old. We have gone to puppy and basic obedience classes. She did so well they used her as the demo dog. For the last couple of weeks the problem is: she sees a leaf, she lunges. She sees a piece of trash, she lunges. She sees another dog, she lunges (to play of course). You get the picture. And, she seems to forget what loose leash means and is requiring much more freqent correction. This seems particularly bad lately (age related?). Plus she is getting strong enough to make it uncomfortable when she does this. When we walk I praise and treat frequently. We have a pretty constant dialog (I'm sure the neighbors think I'm nuts). When she lunges or pulls and doesn't respond to verbal correction I turn quickly in the opposite direction. I am thinking of switching to the gentle leader but I feel like it means I'm giving up. What do you think?

 

[C's Mom]

I am feeling your pain and going through similar circumstances.

I tell him to stop, stand next to me and then say walk with me going first with the left foot. This worked great for two days and now when he lunges or walks ahead and I do this he gets frantic because he thinks that someone/thing is coming up behind us.
I, too, am thinking of getting a gentle leader.

 

[BonnieM]

You are not a failure! I'm sorry you're going through this. I had similar problems with Coby, now 11. He did fine on the leash for a while, then started the lunging you describe. I'd put him in a sit, wait a minute, then we'd start all over again. There were times when it took us 15 minutes just to get out of the driveway. We finally bought a Halti. I, too, felt as if I'd failed and given up, but my shoulder was killing me, and walks were becoming frustrating. He did beautifully on the Halti. We continued to work with him without the Halti, but it took time. He can now walk without it, but there are still times he lunges, mostly just with chipmunks...go figure. As long as I see the chipmunk before him, I can control him. Don't beat yourself up over needing help. If the Gentle Leader can be used as a tool to help him walk better, go for it.

 

[Laurie]

Same here..both of our puppies walked well to begin with and just seem to get worse. We've used a number of different collars and are now using haltis but even with that, they seem to want to pull. I was also suffering from aching shoulders and back but the haltis do seem to work a bit better.