Dogs Keep Pulling on the Leash Despite Training

“So my Aussie rides with me in the semi. And most places I go aside from the farms I go to require leashes and my little wigglebutt as I like to call her (actual name is Willow) absolutely freaks out on the leash. She is 9 weeks old I’ve had her 2 weeks and she’s rode in the truck with me since day four. She absolutely loves it. But hates when I put her on a leash. She gets aggressive and or runs away from me. And when I get her on the leash she will do somewhat okay walking till she decides we’r”

“Hi, im currently trying to train leash pressure for my 2 month old bichon puppy. I have a harness and he would barely move when the harness is on. Usually he would follow me everywhere in the house without harness. But with harness, he will barely move. I feel it is because he is uncomfortable with it. For example, he would follow me down the stairs without harness, but with harness he refuses to go down the stairs until i opened the front the of the house, in which he would finally go down. Im”

“Good morning. I have a 70lb mixed breed (husky, lab, Rottweiler, and others) she is five years old and a smart girl. All except for walks. We have done training, used harnesses and finally settled on the gentle leader about four years ago. She doesn’t pull in the leader but spends a large part of the walk trying to get it off. It’s stressful for both of us. This has gotten worse over the past few weeks where she is constantly pawing at it to be removed. I correct her and we keep it on. But three”

“I have a 6 month old puppy who bites the leash when we’re on walks. She’s a Great Pyrenees x Australian cattle dog (plus a little of some other breeds). She’s great when she’s smelling and doing dog things but sometimes she’ll start to bite the leash and it’s extremely difficult to redirect her. I’ve tried standing there with no reaction in hopes that she’ll realize it’s not a game and stop. She’s started to attack my legs and bite pretty hard to the point where I need to pick her up. I’m nervou”

“I should also add that (as I had to clarify in the comments. Oops). She gets out, and is super active, we just don’t get to go do leash work outside of her normal environment often. She’s not exactly hyper on the leash, it’s almost like she’s adverse to it even when she’s super food motivated and I’ve tried to build positive associations with it. This dang puppy will hold an untrained loose heel OFF leash, but the moment she’s got a leash on she’s just very displeased about it. submitted b”

“So our puppy is fully vaccinated now and we have been taking him on walks for a week. I didn't expect them to go perfectly but I hoped they would be a little tiny calmer now. He pulls like crazy, tries to run away, the works. One thing that baffles me, as I've not had it with any of my previous dogs, is that he whines at us. He just randomly starts crying and whining and tries to jump at us and then immediately runs off and keeps repeating this. Any reason why he'd do it because I ca”

“So im wondering if youre walking your dog and someone else is walking theirs off leash (and yours is on leash) what would you suggest to be the best way to handle their dog running up to you and your dog? Before the past couple times it was a small dog that ran up on mine (but both little dogs were aggressive) but this time it was a big dog running up on mine. He turned out to be friendly but also when I told the owner that his dog running up on us was genuinely scary he didnt really respond. Hi”

“We adopted a 1.5 year old mostly husky/border collie mix (so lots of energy!) almost 2 months ago. We've been working with her on sitting and waiting at the doors and outside gates until we say the release word, since otherwise she'll bolt out of the door and into the street. She's really great at that, but when we leave the house to go on a walk and I give her the release word she sprints full speed out of the door and it ends up hurting my arms since she yanks on the leash so hard.”

“My first dog is about to turn one, he’s been so easy in most ways, but there’s one walking issue im having trouble with. I followed the standard advice about pulling, and it worked great! He never pulls forwards on walks at all and will usually walk either beside me or a little in front with occasional look back check ins. The problem is that when he finds a spot to sniff he hunkers down and refuses to go further. I can get him to stay in a heel position on walks, but I’d like to be able to give”

“Please be kind with your advice. We are working hard on getting our reactivity boy to the dog we know he is. We stopped walking him anywhere but around the yard for the longest time. Now he has been to a training boarding and they worked with him on a slip leash. He seems to have done incredibly well with the trainer. He would go on long public walks with a pack of dogs, and from the reports it seems he did just fine. When the trainer does home visits, he does well there too. When I walk him it”

“My girl has made some amazing progress in terms of leash pulling and responding to commands. She generally (on a calm low distraction walk) responds to my snaps to come closer essentially as a heal command, she sits well in low and medium distraction environments, stays in low distraction, middle meaning in between my legs in low and working towards medium distraction. But on many walks not all she walks nose to the ground tail swaying slow. I believe this is stress and getting information from”

“I’m at wits end with my 1.5 year old male golden retriever. So far, we’ve only used FF with my trainer but I want to explore different options. He’s my first ever dog so I have been working VERY closely with my trainer. He understands that if he gets to the end of the leash, he needs to come back and wait for a cue so that we can resume the walk. Even with this, we can’t get more than a few feet before he’s at the end and we need to reset; this is even in low distraction areas. My trainer says t”

“My puppy learns so well inside. She knows sit, stay, lie down, paw. She can loose leash walk when we practice inside of the house, she checks in with me as we walk along. The problem arises the second I step outside. And I do mean the second. Immediately, it’s impossible to get her attention. Commands like sit which she learned pretty much the first day I got her goes totally over her head. And don’t even get me started on loose leash walking. It’s a miracle if she’s not constantly tugging as we”

“I have a beautiful 9 month old English chocolate lab who is super smart. I, however, cannot figure out how to communicate to her that she needs to walk with a loose leash. I have tried to everything I have seen on fixing the issue. The big issue is that my pup could not care less about treats on a walk. If I want to reward her behavior, I would have to physically push the treat into her mouth. And, yes, I have tried bringing the good stuff. Maybe I have not found the treat so good it overrides h”

“Hi everyone, Looking for honest opinions/ideas because I'm stuck. My Labrador (female, 5yo) went through intensive training during her first year as a puppy. She knows *every* command: sit, stay, down, the works. The problem is execution: she'll do it for about 2 seconds, then scratches herself, gets up, stretches, loses all attention and wanders off to do something else. On walks it's worse: She pulls on the leash constantly, not always but often. She's dog-reactive in a "w”

“When leash training, or really any training, when I reward her with a treat or positive affirmation for following the commands, she immediately stops behaving like, whew, did it, got the payoff, now I go back to being me. Walking nicely on the leash, no pulling, I reward her and she’s off! Tell her to lie down, she does, I tell her she’s a good dog for doing it, and she jumps up and runs off. I know there’s something wrong in the way I’m doing this. I’ve somehow trained her that the reward is th”

“Im asking because latley I have been getting frustrated and overwhelmed on walks with my dog. We do a lot of training where we do walking exercises and practice obediance and thats great fun, I reward with treats an toys. And my dog is pretty good, I plan to start introducing medium distractions soon and I presenting correctiong to "proof" certain behaviours. But anyways all this to say my dog is decently trained. But when it comes to a basic walk around the neighborhood I have a hard”

“My family dog who’s a beagle and almost 1 year old has a tough time with walks. He LOVES to walk, he walks twice a day but the problem is he doesn’t know how to relax during it. He’s a very “on” dog just always excited/rambunctious. His behavior during walks go like this - Bites at the leash, Pulling alllll the time (he’s very strong), constantly sniffing/will stop for a while, barks/growls/charges at people when they walk by and when he sees them he locks eyes on them (he’ll do this with certai”

“Hey yall, this might be an odd question to some but I'm hopeful for some advice as I feel I'm not creative enough to come up with a good solution on my own. My dog - 5y spayed female wirehaired pointing griffon - and I do long hikes every other day anywhere from 8-10 miles depending on the difficulty of the hike. Despite trying several different types of training styles from balanced to LIMA to positive reinforcement, I still find we struggle with pulling at the beginning of the hike unl”

“Hello, I have 2 small dogs. One 3 year old, very well behaved chorkie, and a 9 month old - high energy jackhaund. My chorkie is incredibly well mannered on a lead, doesn't pull and walks by my side but my puppy is always pulling, tangling us up, almost walking into the road, lunging at other dogs, etc. What should I do to help his behaviour on a lead? Because he's such a high energy dog, he needs at least 2 walks a day no negotiation. I know to turn in a 180 degree direction every time h”

“I don’t know how walking my pup should actually look in-practice, and having an unclear standard is leading to inconsistent training and frustration both for my dog and I. Allowed vs. Not Allowed Behavior I don’t have any problem with her sniffing virtually anything she wants and stopping as many times on her walk as she wants because I feel the walks are for her anyway, but I’ve heard this isn’t good etiquette and it is hard for her to discern when she needs to listen to me and when she can jus”

“Hi all! I have an 8 month old cocker spaniel who I've had since she was 2 months old and recently she has been so awful on walks. She has always been a bit of a puller and I've been doing consistent training to try and curb the habit but if anything it's gotten worse. I think she is reactive. She pulls towards other people and dogs if they are within a certain radius of us and she has a really high prey drive (especially with birds and cats). I know everyone is going to say to get a”

“I need help! My dog (7 months, Female, Springer spaniel) is training to be a service dog. She is perfect and very well trained... except when walking on a lead. Im using the method where you stop when they pull. I can't reward her with treats because she is not interested in treats. When she pulls and I stop, she heels immediately (which is great) but as soon as i step forwards, SHE DARTS LIKE A ROCKET and so far she has broken 2 harnesses and 1 collar. When we go on a walk, its like we'”

“Hi everyone! I have a golden retriever that just turned 1 in July. Her leash manners have always been something that I have struggled with. The problem is, she is only food/toy motivated inside. Outside, she becomes very environmentally motivated. Food loses about 90% of its value the second I open the door for a walk. I have tried many treats to find that “golden” one that works. For example, I have figured out that outside I cannot get her into a heel position with a treat or a toy in my hand,”

submitted by /u/LasagnaLoaf [link] [comments]

“I used to call my beagle stubborn when he'd plant himself halfway through a walk. Took me a while to see that he was working through a scent I'd marched right past. Some days I still need us to get home, but I don't treat every pause like an argument now. What's something you misread about your dog until you knew them better? submitted by /u/TheDogCareGuy [link] [comments]”

“Adopted a pittie mix in April and she’s been great! We had a few issues with peeing in the house and jumping but those were quickly, and easily, trained out. But i’m just stumped about what to do with this issue. Lately however, when I walk her in the evening to make sure everything is out of her system (mainly poop/pee but also energy) when she doesn’t want to go home or continue walking she crouches down in a way that makes her slip her harness if I try to pull her, which sometimes she crouche”

“I adopted a 1½-ish-year-old Boxer/Lab/Pit-type mix in July. He’s very food motivated and can respond to commands pretty appropriately in other settings. However, now and for the past 3 weeks, when we try to take him on a leash, he turns against the leash and starts biting and tugging it. This typically happens toward the end of the walk, maybe 10–15 minutes in, or after he poops when he gets excited. Not much trend Once it starts, it’s basically impossible to get him to stop. He won’t listen to”

“Hi all, Will try to keep this short but looking for some advice. I have a 14 month old Staffy Husky cross. Originally he was walked on a harness however he’s now over 40kg and very muscular, and a hardcore puller on the lead. By the time he was 8 months old he was regularly pulling me over on walks so I invested in a trainer who specialised in large and bully breeds. I now walk him using a figure of 8 lead but he still walks under tension at all times and has slipped the nose loop before which c”

“I recently started trying to teach my dog loose leash walking by starting at home and having her on leash walking beside me and giving her some food every few steps she's able to walk beside me without the leash tensing. Problem now is she seems to have developed a habit where she'll just bunker down and not move and when I pull she will have no reaction and stare at me as she's waiting for food or she won't move. I feel like I messed this up and she's in an even worse state”

“My dog is an absolute nightmare on the leash and always has been despite years of training efforts. I genuinely think something might be neurodevelopmentally off with her because I’ve had dogs all of my life and have never had one who is this reactive or insistent on doing what she feels like at the moment on our walks. If she sees someone, another dog, even a random other creature like a lizard, she wants to go up to, she will throw herself on the ground and it will take Herculean effort to get”

“Ok so I have a now 5 month old pitlab that I adopted from the humane society that ive had since she was 3 months old. One of my biggest issues with trying to train these is that she is not interested in any food when we are outside, ive tried regular training treats and she will sniff and look away, ive tried her favorite Hotdogs and cheese, she will sniff and look away or spit them out. But shes happy to train at home. Ok so here are my list of problems I need help training; 1.) When we go for”

submitted by /u/Independent_Goal8272 [link] [comments]

“Hi all! We have a 1.2 year old male boxer who is still intact. We are getting him fixed in the next couple of months, BUT... he's so aggressive on the leash. He used to be able to be off leash with no issues, had decent recall and got along with everyone. Since May, he's become such an asshole. He's TERRIBLE on leash, tries to attack every human or dog he sees and is completely unmanageable for me (I'm a smallish lady). I love him so much and he's so good at home with us but”

“hello, my puppy is 7 months old. we are learning loose leash walking (making good progress unless she’s excited or sees another dog). my puppy is a very timid girl and gets scared easily (think seeing a box on the road and being terrified of it). when she gets scared on the leash, she immediately tries to bolt away from whatever is scaring her. i’m wondering what is the best way to respond to this? i don’t want to force her to be close to something she is scared of, but i also feel it isn’t safe”

“Hi my partner and I are having a dilemma involving my mom's new puppy involving leash training and I want some advice on what we can do to bring up the right things with her. For context we all live in my grandmother's house and already had three dogs, our oldest has been slowly getting closer to passing so we all had a agreement to not get another dog until she did. Cut to my mother on a whim deciding to get a 10 week old puppy (chihuahua pug mix) that my grandma was NOT happy about her”

“I have a 9 week old puppy. We have her on a leash that drags behind her so we can easily stop or correct behavior. This is working well. I’m not so sure what to do with her in the yard. Should I let her run free in the fenced yard? She eats everything she finds and can get too rambunctious. But if I keep on the leash she pulls and jumps to get away. Also, if she is walking nicely and looking for a place to potty she is ahead of me and I don’t want to teach her bad leash habits. I know she is ver”

“Ive tried all the general methods at this point: back & forth walking as soon as he pulls, stop & go, turn back & end the walk if he pulls, constant treats & engagement- he doesn’t care about treats when he’s on the street. He’s a poodle & I currently use a collar but it’s literally breaking my heart too see how hard he’s choking himself on the collar because he likes to LAUNCH himself onto the street from excitement. Do I have to accept that he’s just always going to pull &a”

“I have a mini schnauzer 8months old. I know she's in her rebellious adolescent stage but when I need to go somewhere and I need to take her (mainly for continued training) she runs from me. She does this all day long, not just for car rides. Her body language tells me it's a game to her. I never chase her, instead I offer her a treat so that I can grab her. Am I doing right by offering her a treat everytime? When I don't need to pick her up but I attempt to, I will walk away and igno”

“My dog is leash reactive but otherwise is incredible and I am really struggling with it. He can play hide and seek, does nose work, commands like center, heel, stay and leave it all really well. Even with the cat as a distraction (he'd 100% eat him, no sarcasm there We got a trainer who has great reviews but the first time we met we just talked for 45 minutes.. we had an email consultation before hand so I didn't expect to just not learn/ actively practice anything. The last fifteen minu”

“How did you guys get your puppy to walk nicely on the lead? Our 3.5-month-old Cavapoo just pulls and pulls—so much so that she ends up swinging herself around! She gets instantly distracted by everything: people, dogs, babies, prams, and bikes. The second we step outside into the park, all her indoor commands completely go out the window. We currently walk her on a harness, and the local park we use is fairly active. I really hope her walking gets better—this is the one main thing we want to mak”

“I have a 3 year old golden retriever (rescue). He’s full of energy and has a serious prey drive. On walks, he wants to pull at everything and anything. Squirrels, birds, dogs, people, things I don’t even see, pulls. I’ve been trying to train a loose leash walk for a while, and I’ve seen no improvement. It usually goes something like this: dog pulls, I force him to wait, look at me, and sit. Treat. Give command to start walking, I walk one step, and he pulls hard towards whatever he wants. I stop”

“I have a 2-year-old mixed-breed female dog who is very energetic. When we go for walks, she pulls hard on the leash because she wants to go towards people, and sometimes tries to jump on them. She also jumps on visitors at home and can accidentally hurt them because she doesn’t realize her size. I know I should have trained her earlier, but I didn’t take her on walks much when she was younger because I had problems with my legs. I’m doing better now and want to start training her properly. Where”

“Jasper, 20.5 weeks, probably 60lb now cattle dog mixed with a bunch of other larger breeds of dog. Had him since August 7. He has discovered the You Can't Catch Me game. We need to put much more effort into training his recall than we have, I know this. But for the moment, he's a very large, very fast puppy with the recall of your average housecat. He turns into a giant sharky goblin when he's over tired (I know this is normal for puppies but it is a lot when a dog as big as he alrea”

“Hello everyone! I have a 6 month old shorkie, I’ve been trying to take him on walks but he’s not liking it? I will take him out and he’ll walk maybe 20 feet, stand and watch the cars pass for 10 seconds, pull on the leash to smell spots I don’t want him to smell (specifically any grass that’s directly in front of my neighbors grass, like the one before the sidewalk) and then he will walk back to our house. He’s outside for maybe 3 minutes. I’m not sure what the issue is. He does tend to like sha”

“I have an 11 month old German Shephard. He is not neutered yet but will be soon. If he is off leash he will keep going. How do you teach him to come back? submitted by /u/Prettyred1 [link] [comments]”

“Our bichon pup is 11 weeks (not fully vaccinated)- we have had her for almost 3 weeks. We have been trying the leash at home but she will just lay down and refuses to move 🙃. She doesn’t seem motivated by treats/toys at all when on the leash. She will be able to go for walks in 2-3 weeks how can I overcome this? submitted by /u/Jolly-Experience6818 [link] [comments]”

“I’ve found there can be such a big difference between practising at home and trying the same things outdoors. At home everything can seem to click, but once there are other dogs, people and a million different smells around, getting the same focus is so much harder. For those who’ve experienced this with their pup, did it mostly get better with time and practice, or was there anything specific that helped? submitted by /u/Massive-Row-3229 [link] [comments]”

“Hi 👋🏻 we adopted a 3 month old beagle mix a little over two months ago and from the start I made a horrible mistake and walked her only with my adult dog. Now she refuses to walk without him despite my attempts at praise, treats, luring her with said treats, walking the same route, different route, getting in the car and driving elsewhere. I'm at a loss with how to make her confident enough to walk without him and also feel pretty guilty cause I could have very easily avoided this. Any ide”

“7 month old cocker spaniel. She's great at everything, but she cannot walk nicely. I've been trying my best to train her to at the very least not drag me around when on walks but it's not working. Took her out for a training walk today, and because she became overexcited in the house we had to leave later than I wanted. Which meant everyone was outside going to work and school. I should've just called it but I thought no we'll see how she does. And she was doing FINE until an”

“I want to train that with treats, but my dog doesn't do any other commands when I give him free. He is just running to the treat, and comes back. I have used a leash to, so he needs to do the command and can't go to the treat, but it's a little bit frustrated for him and than he doesn't look to the treat, but looks at me 😅 if someone has any tips, it would be grateful. submitted by /u/Gloomy-Angle3769 [link] [comments]”

“My puppy is 15 nearly 16 weeks and she is mental on a leash, pulling, sniffing or chewing by everything, distracted by anything that moves and refuses to listen to me. Even when I have treats and she knows it she won’t listen and she is the most food motivated dog I have ever met. I’m currently in the beginning stages of trying every time she pulls stop method but she seems to just get frustrated and not get what I want. She’s got that every time we stop she sits down or looks at me but hasn’t g”

“my dog is always excited to go outside, but if i try to bring him outside the closed off estate we live in he will always turn back a few minutes later to try go back home. this is especially true when i drag him to the park (a place he will comedically walk a few steps in before pausing, staring at me, and trying to turn back) we live in a pretty traffic heavy place so im not surprised he dislikes it (he's naturally pretty jumpy and im sure he can sense my own anxiety disorder as well), but”

“My 70lb Rhodesian ridgeback mix, rescue, 6 years old, used to pull a ton at all times. We’ve gotten much better and actually have pretty relaxing walks, but the second we turn around to go home she is relentless. Right now I admit the harness she has is not great for pulling but I mostly use a flat collar for walking, connected to the harness via carabiner, which has a handle as we also have had issues with reactivity so I like to have something I can grab and hold her back if needed. She’s gott”

“Aside from some great progress in the first two weeks, my dog is miserable to walk. We go for two walks a day every day and never get anywhere. We’re just turning back and forth constantly without ever making it more than four blocks from the house. He doesn’t seem to care how much I turn the other way. My training class taught him ‘heel’, but he only does it inside or in the backyard. He won’t even give me focus outside and refuses to check in unless we’re in the backyard. He completely ignores”

“So my 7 month old dog was a rescue dog and for the past 3 months I have been training him. He was very untrained when I took him, our walks were chaotic, he used to be dragging me, pulling on leash, eating everything, barking at people. Now he doesn't do any of that and is a very good dog on a walk. I have taught him a few commands like sit, stand, down, spin, guard etc. However as a first time dog owner, there are a few things I couldn't teach such as him being over excited with visitor”

“My puppy is a 7mo mix of labrador and border collie with whom we were with a professional private trainer last week. My girl wasn't THAT bad, it was just hard to keep her attention and the trainer told me that it was clear that my puppy wasn't interested in training, that she wasn't enthusiastic about it. It seems to her that she prefers to do her own thing (like explore, sniff around) and then when she feels like it, she'll do a few things to get a treat... Is there anything we”

“Long story short, my lab is very high energy and when we go outside she wants to book it. She's gotten a little better over the years but there is still those times where she pulls. I hired a trainer who has us using a Martingale collar on her as well as a gentle lead on her face. It does stop the pulling but she hates it. The trainer has me throwing high value treats at her whenever she tries to take it off.. Anyway, I just dont see how this is going to teach her unless I just keep using th”

“One thing I’ve learned with dogs is that sometimes we keep repeating a command when the dog has already told us pretty clearly, “I don’t understand what you want.” I used to think repeating yourself was part of training. “Come. Come. COME.” Meanwhile the dog is looking at you like you’re the one being difficult. What helped me more was backing up a step and making the behavior easier. Shorter sessions. Fewer distractions. Reward the correct response immediately. Then slowly make it harder. And p”