Starting Leash Training: Gentle Leader Anyone?

I started my pups with a harness and they learned not to pull then IO went to Martingale collar. They act nice ith the Martingale.

Donna
 
You don't need it right now:wink2: Go with an ordinary flat collar and lead (not slip or choke preferably) and when you walk if pup pulls stop and wait for them to come back to heel, or turn around and walk the other way. A pup is a blank slate and right now it will only learn to pull if you let it. Start as you mean to go on and you will be fine.

I use a halti (similar to a gentle leader) on my lab after the recommendation of my trainer, it was an intermediate measure and she taught me how to walk him on a loose lead without it. I still keep it though for when I walk both dogs as Cadbury is a shrewd beggar and sometimes takes advantage of me being distracted by Merlin.
 
Just to elaborate more....

When walking your dog, if the dog starts to tug and pull, a gentle correction is normally enough. I stop and give a gentle pull back on the leash. When the boys settle again, we walk again. Eventually they learn that if they pull too hard, the walk stops. If they relax, the walk starts again.

The main reason why I like the martingale is because for Shelties, with their thick ruffs, it lies loose around there neck when not attached to a lead. No chaffing, no matting.

In my view, the majority of Shelties don't need harnesses or gentle leads. These would be extreme cases, and I maintain that most Shelties can be trained to walk nice with due diligence.

I am now able to walk my dogs without a leash with a 99% recall. It does take time and training, but it will come. These are smart dogs and they do want to please.
 
Thanks for all the advice on the "gentle leader"

Thanks for all the great posts! I returned my gentle leaders or a full refund. We are sticking to our loop lead and she has tolerated her regular collar with ID. She is only 9 weeks old, so no rush. Great advice everyone. See my new post on how to get puppy out of the back door :) That advice is welcome as well.
 
SheltieChe said:
welcome to the forum, I can see you have not posted much yet.
Don't worry about starting GL at such young age, and yes, it is great collar and yes, majority of people only start using it when it is last resort and dog is out of control but oh it is so much easier to start when they young, teach them and then switch to martingale...
It is all about controlling reinforcement and it is SO MUCH easier to control outside reinforcement from the get go. Why let dog learn how much fun lunging and barking is going to be? Why not teach them that best decision is to be with DaMama from the beginning?
If you are unaware, there is Puppy peaks program going on now, started by Susan Garrett who is training her puppy Swagger. Swagger as all dogs SG has, trained wearing GL from the babyhood and there are few clips coming about games to make pup to like it. Pretty much play all kinds of games, like letting them stick their nose through the loop etc, then tug, eat in GL. If you have Shaping success book there is lots of info there how to use it.
Puppy Peaks is series of videos, showing how Swagger gets trained every week. You can sign up for monthly review.
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This is the same philosophy that is used by my trainer and several other trainers in my area. Start with the GL, teach good habits from puppy hood then wean them off of it when they're older.
 
corbinam said:
I wanted to post here to say that I am a Gentle Leader user. I'm not offended by those who say that shelties don't need them, but I also challenge those people to come and try to take my dog Bentley for a walk. Yes, we got him when he was 7 months old, and he was already lunging/barking at bikes and other dogs at that time, so it's possible that the issue was irreparable from the moment we took him home.

That being said, as a note to the original poster, this is not a leash that I would start out with unless I had serious problems with a regular leash/collar. Does your puppy pull a lot? That's okay, she's a puppy.

Work on teaching her to walk nicely using many of the suggestions the forum has tried (peanut butter on a spoon, stopping when she pulls, even gentle corrections are okay in my opinion) before using the GL.
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I have some of the same issues with Mia. When we first got her she was so wonderful on her regular leash for walks. But recently, just in our nieghborhood and at the rail trail, she will start to pull and bark insanely at people and other dogs. At first I thought she was showing signs of aggression. But as soon as she meets the people/dog she is fine. What is even more confusing is I call her my Hyde dog. She is so good in obedience class but at home can be very hard headed. It is like she is in her own little world. I do training everyday with her. We were taught how to meet and greet people but nobody seems to understand that they can't touch her till I give her the sit command. She gets so excited and wants to jump. Again she doesn't do this in class. I just spoke to our trainer and she said that the gentle leader will be good for teaching her not to pull and act this way on walks. I have tried the leave it and treat reward when she has no response. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
 
My dog was beginning to learn with a regular collar. Then around 5 or 6 months, she got really reactive and will bark and pull many times on a walk... at dogs, at people, at noises, etc. Tried the Martingale first, and it worked wonderfully for a few days, then not at all. Then, I used a prong, and it worked like a charm for a few weeks, then she began to ignore it. Moved to GL and once again it was wonderful for a couple of weeks. But now, she is beginning to dislike it, trying to remove it sporadically on the walk, sometimes, but sometimes does better. Still barking like the dickens, but doesn't pull anymore. I do not think any of these are "evil" or even bad. You have to find out what works for your dog. We are working on the bark with bark/quiet and trying to get her attention with food to break her "reactivity" focus. It is a process for sure.
 
I have always used harnesses on all my dogs and they all walk nicely. They have collars only for ID and rabies tags. Are there advantages to using collars over harnesses? I had my oldest dog slip out of his collar when he was young and scared me to death when he took off running.
 
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