the trick that has worked for me has been with a prong collar is that anytime they pull i give them a quick tug in the chain and a i take the my heel and give a tap on the chest not hard but like a push my dobies hated that and quicky learned to stop pullin and it also got them to pay more attention to me and just stay looking up at me while we are walking

Will this work with a 3 month old? Mine wants to sniff every thing imaginable and he pulls sideways, not forward. I've tried saying Slow a million times and pop his leash but he just keeps on doing it. I just wnat him to stop trying to pull my arm out of my socket and have a nice walk.

I play with him alot so he shouldn't have a ton of energy when we walk.

Since this thread was started in June, perhaps Angela (the original poster) could come let us know if she had any success?

I wouldn't put a 3 month old pup on a pinch. With that young of a pup I would just have patience.

Hi Amber,

Well, I have to (embarrassedly) admit that I kind of gave up. He still pulls on his prong. He does stop for about 1.5 seconds when I pop the leash like Ed shows in his video. But our walks were me just continuously popping his lead. (pop pop pop (frustrated) POP! pop pop pop POP!!!!! pop!) etc.

The standing still as long as he pulls, did NOT work for this dog.

I'm sure continuous 180's would have eventually worked, but we do need to get somewhere (fenced area where he can run off-lead, or in his case a long 30' lead) so we didn't get much exercise doing that.


I did not end up buying a halti/Gentle Leader.

If there's something I didn't try, or someone has a success story, I'm all ears. :-)

A halti? is that for horses??ok I know what it is I was joking..
I think giving up is not what I would have thought of doing, Success is so much more rewarding.And you can achieve it Angela.
For me my advise is to change direction on your dog as you are walking straight ahead ,Boom go right (in a quick and firm matter)and give him a "strong" pop correction at the same time.Don't wait for him to make the turn with you,then walk a bit more ,Boom, go left give him a pop walk like you have an agenda (if you know what I mean)Dont let your dog dictate how the walk is going to go!! Don't give up ,cause he is going to come up with more things to take advange of.

By the way John you can do the same with a half choke half nylon but not a prong, it's a baby, soft tissue! Don't worry you will have your day for a prong but for now I would go with my idea first.

Hi Angelique, I must say I have seen the picture of your 3 GSD doing a down-stay and I am impressed by the training and discipline.

Lately my objective with my dogs has been to get them enough exercise. When I said I "gave up" I just meant that I've been doing little to no leash work and just kind of putting up with pulling for the short time he's on it. I actually had another training issue come up with this boy (fence running, barking, defensiveness) that I've been working on with him. So I kind of put the leash work on a back burner in favour of long-line work at the fence. (Which I am pleased to say is coming along very well).

Do you ever get the feeling that your dog is smarter than you are? I do. It happens when I do the changing direction exercises that you describe. I dont think I am doing it right, because when I start changing directions suddenly, he "catches on" and will pay close attention to me with lots of eye contact, but then as soon as I start going straight it's like he's 2 steps ahead of me and knows, "ok, we're going this way so now I can pull".

As for a 3-month-old pup, I would NOT correct a dog this age. Simply changing direction should work as he doesn't want to get left behind, simple leash tugs (pops) with a flat collar.

Angela, so you quit working on teaching your dog how to walk on leash (simple), then give advice to someone with a 3mo old puppy?

Ya gotta love the internet,

So, I have decided I should come out of the closet.....I use a halti. I have a vizsla mix who learned every route to the trails we took and he'd pull like there was no tomorrow. We tried with flat collars, we tried a slip collar (nylon and chain), we tried a prong (though at the time I doubt we used it properly)...this dog did not care what you did to him, he'd keep pulling. Finally, we bought a halti, and I swear the clouds opened and there were angels singing. I didn't even have to correct with it, it went on, and he went into a heel. We used it twice, and have never had to use it since, as his heeling carried over to the flat collar. I don't get it, and I probably never will.

I'm not a fan of the halti as a training collar - I would NEVER use it for anything other than training the heel...I don't know much about physiology but I know that having your neck twisted like that suddenly can't be good.

I've used it on three of my own dogs now and on the two first dogs (vizsla mix and a basenji), I only had to use it on two walks and both dogs would heel automatically after that on any collar. I didn't even need to do corrections, so I didn't need to worry about the neck thing. For my manchester terrier, it's been helpful, but not as much of a miracle. I used it a few times...it slowed her down a little, so I switched to a slip collar because I need to use corrections with her, and I've had great success.


Anyway, since you've tried everything else, I thought I'd just mention my experience with the halti.