He is a 1yr old lab. he was pulling terribly on leash. i got him a head collar. it works great. i don’t use the head collar, he still pulls but not a bad as before. What other training methods can i use so he wont pull? to be honest im not too concerned with him walking at my side at the moment, just the pulling. unless of course the way to training is walking by my side so he wont pull. ALL advice welcome!
Labs are known for this. I have a Lab and she used to pull terribly. The reason they do this is because they are trying to be the dominant one, so they are pulling because no matter how far you let them get ahead of you they try to get further ahead. My dog was the same with the gentle leader (Head collar). The way I got her to stop was to teach her to walk beside me.
I would wear a shirt or Jacket with a pocket, which I would fill with training treats. I would then put her on the leash and tell her to walk nice, right away before she had a chance to pull or get distracted, I would reach in the pocket and give her a treat. Now her interest (especially being a lab who are notorious food hounds) is on my pocket. Every couple steps I would say good walk nice and give her another treat. For training I started with very short walks and frequent treats to keep her interest, then as she got better I would make the walks longer, and the space the treats out more. Now I don’t even need to bring a treat with me, I tell her to walk nice and she stays right beside me. At first when I wasn’t training her I would use the gentle leader to avoid her picking up bad habits. Patience is key, labs are very smart, find a way to communicate what you want and they will learn very quick. I’ve been able to teach mine everything from the basics to turning on and off the tv.
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I'm guessing you're really interested in two things: how do you stop the dog from pulling, and how do you get the dog to behave while walking on a leash (i.e., not jump on people, eat gross stuff, dash around ignoring you, etc).
The easiest way to stop a dog from pulling is to use a no-pull head halter or harness that just makes it impossible for the dog to pull with any kind of force. I like the Gentle Leader brand head halter and the Easy Walk harness. I've used the Gentle Leader myself; it works extremely well at stopping pulling, but some dogs don't like the feel of the strap on their nose. It doesn't hurt, but just like a puppy in a new collar, it feels weird and they don't like it. I haven't yet personally used the Easy Walk harness, but I've heard fantastic reports on it.
If you want to train on a regular collar, it's usually easiest to train the dog to *do* something, like walk next to you, rather than to *not do* something, like not pull. My favorite method is to have something the dog wants (like a favorite toy or tiny, yummy treats) with me, and every time the dog is next to me on a loose leash, saying 'Good dog!' and giving a treat or short play-time. If the dog pulls, walk away from what he wants. He'll learn that walking nicely gets him places and gets him fun things from you, and pulling only gets him farther away from what he wants. A good trainer can help you and your dog be walking together well in a short time, regardless of method.
Getting the dog to behave while on a leash is the same thing as getting to behave while off the leash. It can be helpful to teach a good 'Leave it!' command so that the dog doesn't go gobbling every icky thing from the house to the park. To teach the dog to not jump on people, teach it to sit when it greets people. Everything can become easier if you can convince your dog that you're more interesting and important than anything else he might encounter. It takes some work, but when you're done you have a dog that actively looks to you for fun and games and companionship instead of trying to hurry away to something more interesting.
Good luck!
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