Hi, I hope somebody will be able to help me - Harvey is now 7 months old and he's a nightmare when out walking. I use a normal collar and lead and no matter what I try, he pulls like crazy and when he gets to the end of his lead, he goes up onto his back legs and lunges forwards. I have tried with the lead across my body holding a treat by my side but he ends up in front of me tripping me up, I have also tried stopping and starting and changing directions but the minute I start walking again then he's off pulling and choking himself. To be honest, it is a nightmare and it doesn't help that I have walking difficulties and struggle bending which are made so much worse by Harvey's pulling as it puts so much pressure on my lower back. I wondered if any harness ect would help and if anyone has used any equipment on a Cav before? I have read on here of somebody using the walkezee harness and that it helped but just wondered if anyone had any other suggestions.

Thanks

Hayley

Hayley, I really think you should persevere with the stop/start method.  You say that "the minute I start walking again then he's off pulling and choking himself" - well don't let him - stop again!

The problem with the stop start method is that you must do it ALL the time.  Your dog must never ever succeed at walking forwards and pulling.  Whenever the lead is tight, that must be your signal to stop.  Believe me, it works - you just have to be consistent and persistent.  A Cav is not the hardest dog to teach to walk on a loose lead, I promise you.

My trainer told me that for every month the dog has been allowed to pull it will take the same amount of time to correct it - so in this case 5 ish months? Whatever method you use keep it up and be consistent - it wont be an easy road but you will get there in the end.
I personally tried several things on my cav and decided that the kindest thing was to buy a walkezee. We had not been enjoying walks for a while and i was getting so hung up on trying to stop him pulling that we ended up only getting a few yards down the road with all the stopping and changing of direction.
If i had perservered i know he would have come good and if you like i took the easy way out but both me and my dog are happier now he has a harness.
The harness has now broken the habit and he will walk nicely with or without it.

Hayley, i know it feels like this is never going to end but i can assure you which ever way you choose to correct this-either with a harness(walkezee) or with the stop start method(which i incorporated with the harness) it does get better. They key is consistency and hard work.Looking back at that last bit,i feel you may take the wrong end of the stick, i just mean we learnt to be consistent and worked harder than i thought i could ever imagine,no offence intended honest.

I lost alot of sleep because i felt a failure,we seem to have cracked everything and then we had this huge problem with pulling thrown in to disillusion me. Honestly, the amount of times i said i will never walk this pooch again im surprised we have come out the other end. We increased the walks,not the length of time but frequency, the poor thing was sick of going out in the end, i think because she was over exposed to sights and smells they lost the novelty if you get what i mean.

Now, she is so much more relaxed and knows she can have more fun when shes walking respectfully so she got the connection between pulling and fun stops or walk nice and you get lots of fun for longer.

Shes now 10months old and for now is an absolute angel. Im not holding my breath they tend to turn you into liars dont they.

Dont dispair stick in there and ive got my fingers crossed. Harvey will get the idea sooner than you think.

Regards Julie.

Hayley
My friends cavalier also pulls on the lead, sometimes walking on two back legs so he can get their quicker.  He goes to Obedience classes and is great there but normal road walk is hard for her.  She suffers from neck, shoulder and arm damage so obviously wants to rectify this.  When I was at the pet food warehouse yesterday she asked me to get a harness.  I ended up buying her a Halti harness (nothing goes around the nose) and it is supposed to be recommended by Roger Mugford. I'll let you know how she gets on with it.

Thankyou for all your replies........seems that I MUST keep at it feel such a plonker walking down the road stopping and starting, doing about turns ect:rolleyes: I will be getting some form of restraint and I'm very interested to see how the halti harness is on a Cav. Thanks again everybody.

Hayley

Oh sorry I just had to read this thread...a cute little pulling cav! lol... I think they are hard to train because they have such a cute little face... and those eyes!

You should find pet shops will let you try on halters..at trainig club sometimes the tainer keeps an assortment of diffrent training halters peole an try before they buy.

I have two young Aussies who will be 18 months old in the summer and I am determined that they will walk well by the time they mature and so I am still stopping, changing direction... walking backwards...doing stamping things with my feet, making funny noises ...when he's walking with me my hubby says it's like walking with someone with severe  Tourette's Syndrome!

Definately keep at it.

By all means use something that prevents your dog from injuring himself when he zooms off ahead, but please dont expect it to do the training for you.

With a small dog, most items of equipment will end up with the dog on its back legs struggling to drag you along - its not the equipment (unless its one of those awful harnesses designed to do just that), its the simple physics of small dog + human hand height.

The getting in front of you, jumping and tripping you up is also one of the problems with training a very small dog, you cant just continue to walk with a small dog in front of you like you could with something larger.

Instead of just stopping dead, keep on with the treats in the hand you want him to walk next to, but when he barges ahead, about turn and walk the other way.
You wont get very far for a good few weeks, so if you HAVE to take him somewhere, and you dont have the time to do this, id recommend using something that physically prevengts him pulling, so that at the very least he NEVER gets rewarded for pulling again.

Dont fall into the lazy trap of using it all the time though! (so easy to do and one reason why i ahve a 12 month old pup here who still pulls like a tank if im not 100% paying attention).

Give your dog a reason to pay attention to you, so communicate, be fun and have treats etc, and then the odds are much better - pull ahead = go back the other way, get NOwhere on walk. Walk nicely and get treats and praise and fun voice etc.

Keep at it!

Em

On the whole Nips is quite good on a lead although towns can be something of a nightmare because of the sheer joy of discovering all those previously marked lamp posts. But he doesn't jump around like Harvey, instead, preferring to run on the spot while making that ghastly choking noise. However, while you do look like a complete plonker stopping and starting, it does work, and I've found it works all the better if I keep reminding him to concentrate on me. The worst influence of all, in his case, was an extendable lead and he walks much, much more sensibly on a fixed lead. As he's got older (he's 8 months now) he has got much less easily distracted though and maturity seems to have had as helpful effect on him too. Good luck though, I'm sure you'll get there!

Hayley
My friend came down to the field today with the halti harness (that is what it is called) on.  She is pleased with it. I thought it looked like he was still pulling, and he was, but she reckoned that it didn't feel as though he was pulling too badly more like a gentle pressure.  It seems to work by controlling the front of the dog as well and the back ie, his back not back end.(hope you understand that)! She bought an extra lead clip from our local diy shop and put it on the handle of the lead. Then you clip one end of the lead to the front of the harness and the other end to the ring on the dogs back.  Thus the lead is looped and you hold the bit in the middle.  If the dog goes on two back legs you move your grip further down the lead and this unbalances the dog slightly so puts his front legs back on the ground???? God this sounds awfully complicated.  All I can tell you is that she is very pleased with it and normally when he is following my girls he is on his back legs pulling to get to them and twittering all the time.  She certainly seemed to have more control over him today.  Hope this helps.
Alison

The most effective think I introduced to the no pulling training was a three strikes and your out rule - that is pull again and we're going home. This was once he'd gotten the idea of not pulling by consistently applying the stop/go backwards methods people have recommended here. There were a few days when he was over-excited and couldn't get three houses down the street without going backwards. Third time of going the other direction I just took him in the house, took the lead off and sat down. You should have seen his face. After 5 minutes we tried again and he was much better. Learning that he loses out on his walk if he doesn't behave has made a gentleman out of him.

I've tried this 'going in the other direction' maneouvre, and the little madam just plonks her bum down and resists....how do I make her come in the opposite direction  is she refuses to budge?

Having golden retrievers you can imagine how three dogs can pull.  One day in particular I decided that I had had enough, I have one that used to pull particularly badly. Decided to turn around and go home, I'd teach the little monsters.!! Tasha (my worst one and the most clever) couldn't believe it.  Almost had to be dragged back, the others were more of the attitude of OMG she's in a foul mood. Got back home, almost threw them through the front door.  Gave them some time out and some finger wagging.  Then said 'lets go and this time behave'.  Wonderful, all dogs beautifully behaved, couldn't believe it!.  Got to the spot where we had turned around and I swear that at that precise spot Tasha started pulling again. The witch.  I ask myself, how do you cope with a dog like her.  Luckily she is 11 1/2 now and has slowed down with age.!!!

I would just keep walking to be honest Fluff.  If she sits down and you then stop walking, you are rewarding her sitting down - she has got what she wanted by sitting down (a rest or not to go in that direction).  If you just keep walking she'll learn it doesn't work.  And that it's not very comfortable being towed down the street.  (This assumes she is not afraid of something and that's not the reason she is resisting - that it's just that she doesn't want to go forwards.)

In all honesty..... in a situation like that. Id set her up for a fall there, id go somewhere safe, where i could ensure nothign bad would happen to her, adn then when she plonked herself down and refused to move, id just drop the lead and walk off.
Failing that, if shed just pee off and have fun, then id tie her to something and walk off, preferably to behind a tree or just out of her sight so i could still see her.

Sounds drastic and obviously you couldnt do it on the road or anything like that, but i have removed MY support, attention etc from a situation before with good results.
It WAS a different situation, my dog was lunging and barking at other dogs and he felt i was backing him up. So i set up a situation where dogs would walk past, which he couldnt possibly reach (dogs and owners knew the deal), and the SECOND he barked and lunged - i left him.
He quickly figured out after only three or four goes, that barking and lunging got him NOwhere, other dogs were still present (walkign about not just standing staring at him) and his source of backup and support gone.

After that we could move on to me opening the treat bar whenever we saw another dog as he was more concerned then about where i was and NOT focussing on the other dogs as much.

If a dog laerns that when he/she throws themselves to the ground and refuses to move you are left with very few options, and all of them pretty much give the dog SOME reward for doing it. The only other thing you could do is stand there and ignore it. Picking up the dog, trying to cajole it with food adn toys etc would probably reinforce the behaviour.

Havent thougth my method through 100% ill admit, it is something of a gut reaction really (ie 'if you aint coming, sod ya, im off'), so if you think that MIGHT work, do think it through and discuss it with others first, and make 110% sure nothing can happen to your dog whilst you stomp off without her.

Em

Hi! Just to let you know, yesterdays walk went quite well. I really focused on the stop start method (we were out for ages but didn't walk very far) anyway, Harvey was much better but as soon as we got onto the main road with the park in full view, he was awful - completely deaf and Sooo excitable:rolleyes:.........think I'm going to have to walk him around the quiet, boring streets for now until he starts getting the message properly. I will keep at it though, Rome wasn't built in a day was it.

Hayley

Glad yesterday's walk was better, Hayley. However, I'm not surprised he's thrilled when he sees the park and I wonder whether keeping him totally on the boring walks will get him over the loony excitement when he catches sight of somewhere so much more tempting! So my suggestion would be to keep up the boring stuff but also include opportunities to train him in the circumstances you are actually going to want to walk him longer term. Otherwise I wonder whether the sight of "forbidden fruit" is likely to make him forget how he behaves when he does the duller stuff.

Hayley, you can actually use the exciting place in your training - for example - the more he wants to go to the park, the more motivated he will be to learn not to pull towards it.  I would choose a lamp post or another marker about where he usually starts to pull.  If he pulls, you walk back to that marker and try again.  Keep doing this over and over again - every time he pulls to get to the park, go back to the marker.  Eventually he will learn that the only way to get where he wants is to walk nicely.