Dogs That Pull On The Leash: Myths, Lies, Humorous Advice, And Real Solutions That Work

00:00 — Kati introduces the show, issues a trigger warning, and asks listeners to subscribe.

Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered Trigger Warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the Truth in Dog Training.

Hey everybody, this is your host, Kati Peppe. Before we jump in, I just wanted to take a quick second and remind you to hit the subscribe button because that helps us so, so, so much. We appreciate every subscribe and follow, and we have so much valuable information we wanna share with you. So we don't want you to miss an episode. Without further ado, let's jump in. Hey guys, thanks for joining me today. We, I think we got a good one for you today. We're gonna talk about leash pulling, which is obviously one of the most common things people are dealing with, uh, super, super common.

And, um, most of the advice out there, of course, is wrong <laugh>, as it is for most things, right? So no different. Um, and so people stay stuck and that sucks 'cause it's so unnecessary. So we're gonna talk about leash pulling today and how we fix it and what, you know, what you're gonna see out there for advice, which I'm sure, I'm sure you've all seen it already, but we'll talk about what's generally out there for advice and why it doesn't work.

And kind of a funny, um, story about a post I saw regarding this on social media today. So if you want, if you want some kicks, it's like just go to social media, you know, go to Facebook and search up some of these, um, dog training issues and, you know, uh, people and groups and whatnot will pop up and, and you can look at the comments and you can really have a good laugh. So if you're ever feeling bored or down one day and you need to giggle, that's what I do <laugh>. So we'll talk about that.

Um, but I thought first I'd just give everybody a little bit of an, of an update, um, since we're a super current and this episode is going to air probably right after I record it. Um, and there's not gonna be a delay. I thought I'd give a little update on our current training cases.

We have Mildred, the Poop eating French Bulldog, and we have, um, Callie <laugh>, I always wanna call her Kayla, Kaylee, Callie, uh, Callie, the nervous golden retriever. So they're both behavioral cases. They're both here for three weeks, uh, minimum. And Mildred the Frenchie, um, her owner said she was pooping up to 13 times a day and eating it every time and eating other dog's poop too. So she has another dog. And um, Mildred would eat her poop and she would eat the other dog's poop, which is obviously super gross, <laugh>. Um, but because she was consuming so much poop, she was pooping more herself.

03:00 — Mildred’s poop-eating created a cycle where consuming feces led to more bowel movements.

And so it was kind of a vicious cycle, right? The more she eats poop, the more she poops, the more poop she has to eat and around and around would go. So obviously disgusting, terrible cycle they had gotten into. And the good news is, um, when she came here, she had a couple of accidents, but, um, that's also not super uncommon on the first day.

And right off the bat, things were significantly better than they were at home. And I mean, part of that, we see that a lot, of course. And part of that is just because things are different here and the dog knows things are different here, but also we're just highly structured, right? So we really grab the bull by the horns, we control everything. Uh, we're steering the bus, right? And people aren't doing that at home. Even if they think they are, they aren't because they're sucked into the momentum of their normal daily routine. And they're not controlling things as much as they could.

Almost always is that's the case. So obviously Mildred came here, she's not free, she's not running around my house, she's not running around my living room. She's not even running around my yard at first, right? So she's always in her kennel or she's on a short leash with me.

Um, and we have started to branch out from that now because she's been here for a few days. So she's, she's starting to do duration on her place cot. She's starting to drag a long line out in the yard. Um, and she stays pretty near, which her owner says is also very, very different. So at home, she would always run off, always bolt away. Um, usually she'd run around the yard frantically searching for poop, of course, and eating it. Um, but she wouldn't listen. She wouldn't respond to her name and she would just run off and do her own thing and you couldn't get her back.

And, um, she drug along line, dragged along line in my yard yesterday, uh, with a couple of the other, I think it was my dogs outside running around. And she stayed right near. And when she didn't respond to my verbals, like if she hung behind, that happened a couple times, she'd kinda lag way behind and just stand there, um, and look at me.

And if I called her and she didn't come, I could just tap on that remote. And, uh, she figured out what to do with that really, really quickly, with just a little bit of body language on my end, some verbal. And so now she's super responsive to eco taps when we're out in the yard and we're dragging the long line. Um, but for the most part, other than me walking away and her kind of lagging behind, she hasn't done any of that running off. Um, and ignoring me, bolting away, none of that. And here's the other weird thing is I haven't seen her try to eat poop at all even once.

Um, she did have a couple accidents in her kennel, which we're gonna talk about real quick. And I, I do think she probably did eat some just because it was so smattered around.

06:00 — Kati suspects Mildred’s kennel mess may involve poop consumption but cannot confirm it.

Now I've had dogs messing their kennel and smatter it around and they're not poop eaters. So I don't know, she might not have, but her owner says that she does eat it. And when she does eat it, it is smattered around like that. So I'm just gonna assume that she probably did. Um, she probably did. So unfortunately, we are seeing it, which I mean, I, we expected, right? Because there's no magic. It's not like just walking through the door, she's gonna spontaneously change. Um, and this might be a really hard one for us to get traction on.

Um, but I am struck by the fact that her looking for poop outside and eating poop is so dramatically different right off the bat with no experiences here. Like I didn't have to give her any feedback, she's just not interested in it here. So she's outside and she poops, she doesn't even sniff it.

She walks right away from it and she shows no interest in it whatsoever. So that is a very different behavior than she was displaying at home. Um, on day one she peed in my mom's car, <laugh>, I'm borrowing my mom's car 'cause I'm having car trouble. She peed on the seat on the way home, which was a little weird. And, um, definitely concerned me, sent up some red flags. Um, and then later that day we had to go back to the training center and she peed in her kennel. Um, and she hadn't been in there that long.

So again, it was like, okay, this one might be really challenging. But since then she hasn't had any pee accidents at all. I don't think so. Um, so hopefully that was just a, you know, a, a day one sort of thing. Day one, day two. It's like things like that happen.

It's a new routine, it's a new place, dogs aren't used to it, and they have accidents sometimes. So hopefully that's all that was. Um, I think the interesting thing is she didn't have any poop accidents overnight the first night or two, but then they started. And so I'm making it a point to finish her food a little earlier in the day. I'm making it a point to bring her out really late right before I go to bed. And she's still having poop accidents in the night, uh, which isn't great, especially since, you know, I'll bring her out at like seven or eight o'clock and she'll poop.

And then I'll bring her out again before I go to bed, which would be sometime between nine and 11 probably. And she will poop again. And then if I get up at seven in the morning, she's already pooped in her kennel. Um, so we're gonna have to try some other stuff. And my plan right now,

The plan right now is to, uh, number one, see if I can find a smaller kennel. Um, 'cause right now the kennel season is small, but it, it could be smaller. She's a very tiny dog. And to finish her food even earlier in the day and for me to get up a little bit earlier and see if, um, because I don't know when these accidents are happening, right? They could be happening an hour after I go to bed. They could be happening six or seven hours after I go to bed because it's ordinarily eight to 10 hours before I, um, come back to let the dogs out in the morning.

So we're gonna try all of these things, um, to see if we can get some traction, especially since this is the only problem we're having guys. So when you think about it, like her owner said it was absolutely ridiculous.

She was pooping constantly. She was eating it constantly. She was always scouring the yard for poop. Um, she'd go outside and not poop because she was too busy looking for poop to eat. And then she'd come inside and poop because she hadn't pooped outside and she'd eat it and round and round we'd go and it was constant and incessant and she'd get up in the morning and there'd be three or four poops, um, smattered around her kennel, um, <laugh>. So, so things are already, um, without even having done much, just, you know, structuring and controlling things, things are already dramatically, dramatically better.

10:00 — Mildred is dramatically better under structure, but nighttime accidents may still involve eating feces.

Um, the only issue we're having at the moment is she doesn't seem to be able to hold it through the night. And when that happens, it does look like she might be engaging in eating it, but I can't really tell for sure.

So, and unfortunately I can watch her like a hawk, but I do have to sleep. <laugh> can't stare at her all night. So, um, so we have a few things up our sleeve still though, to try. Um, and even today we used a bunch of food for training, but we stopped doing that at 1:00 PM and we'll see if that helps. If we can get all the poops now out of the way before bedtime, maybe she'll get through the night, right? And I'm gonna get up a little bit earlier too and just see if the, uh, if the kennel is still clean and I'll take her out.

Okay. And then moving on, we've got Callie. Um, Callie hasn't been here quite as long. I think she came in the the next day. Um, I've done a little bit less with Callie, but Callie's super, super nervous and um, we've had a lot of nervous goldens.

Um, and it's pretty common for the breed too, to be a little bit more on the tense, anxious side. But over the past year we've had a few, um, super, super, super nervy, uh, golden retriever. So she definitely falls into that category. And you know, the worst part about working with a dog like that is the rest of the world outside looking in. 'cause all they see is a nervous dog. And it's your fault, right? It's our owner's fault, it's my fault. It's wherever she came from. Fault. It's always somebody's fault. And it's like, no, this is just who she is, right?

And it's like, if I have to correct something like bolting through a door, bolting out of the kennel, jumping, whatever it is, and the dog looks super scared because she always looks super scared guys because she is, because that's how she's wired.

Um, then it's of course, um, you're making it worse. You're evil, you're stupid, you don't know how to train a dog. You shouldn't be near a dog. You know, I could run through all the stupid things people say, but, um, the fact is some dogs are just nervous and it's not because of anything. Um, and you can't say, okay, well I'm just not gonna train the dog because she's nervous. Um, because number one, that doesn't work. And number two, it doesn't help the dog. So, uh, it's counterintuitive to folks and I understand that, but proper training and setting real boundaries and helping your dog get grounded does help them.

13:00 — Kati says consistent training and grounding can improve nervous dogs despite necessary corrections.

So this nervy thing that she has, it will get better, even though I'm correcting her for some stuff. It will get better. Um, but they get all the same training every other dog is. And you know, I think that's the, one of the most beautiful things about proper training is it doesn't matter what your dog's problem is.

And it doesn't matter why. It doesn't matter if they're nervous, if they're fearful, if they're anxious, if they're pushy, if they're aggressive, if they're reactive, no matter where your dog lands, proper training will move them to the center, right? It doesn't mean it'll be perfect, doesn't mean they'll all land dead center and be perfectly balanced and mentally stable. Um, but they will move toward the center with proper training. It doesn't matter what the dog's problem is and it doesn't matter why. So you don't even have to waste your time, um, ruminating on that and wondering and contemplating like, why is my dog like this and something happened.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But, so I'm looking forward to the <laugh>, the barrage of, um, ignorant negative comments when I post Callie because she is nervous and so she looks nervous because she is nervous, she's nervous all the time.

Uh, that's just her personality. It's just how she's wired. But the beautiful thing is that should improve over time with proper training and it's something her owners can take home and continue to build on and see how far she can go. So we're excited for that. Um, she did bark and growl at our reflection <laugh> on our way into the training center when she sees our reflection in the door. Um, she barked and growled at the Dunking Donuts drive through person this morning, which I have to be honest, I wanted to bark and growl at her too.

So can't really blame her. <laugh>, it's a whole other story. But the Dunkin Donuts by my house has this one girl that they, and they've got one girl that's absolutely fantastic, but I think she's out on maternity leave and there's this other girl working there now who's, it's like, she is catatonic.

She doesn't respond to things, she doesn't make facial expressions, she just kind of stares at you with blank stare and you can hear people giving her instructions like, and she's just not, she's not responding, she's not doing it. Like I don't even understand how she's still there, <laugh>. It's interesting. Um, but neither here nor there. Anyway, that's just a little insight into my mornings when <laugh>, when I stop at d and d. Okay, well let's get into it guys. Leash pulling, uh, leash pulling, leash pulling, man, is this a common issue? So I think it's safe to say most dogs do this.

And I think it's also safe to say the way most people deal with this is to go buy a harness, which is the worst thing a person can do if they're trying to rectify pulling. So harnesses were literally made to make it easier for the dog to pull, okay?

16:00 — Kati rejects harnesses for leash pulling because they make it easier for dogs to…

And so that is what's going to happen if you buy a harness, you are going to make it more comfortable and easier for the dog to pull. You also, depending on the type of harness, I suppose, risk actually encouraging pulling because it's such a broad space, um, where you are implementing pressure on the dog's chest. And so think of it like somebody comes up and with a wide hand, they push on your chest, right? And well, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna push back? Right? So if you have that um, broad span of pressure pushing against your body, you push back on it.

And so harnesses tend to do that, right? So the dog pulls, it gets a little pressure on the chest from the harness and then they pull harder. Um, because that would just be natural.

Uh, your dog also cannot hear. Now when I say hear, I really mean feel, right? They can't hear what you're saying through your leash, which actually is not literal, right? They can't feel what you're communicating through your leash. That's what I mean when I say they can't hear what you're saying through your leash. So if you have your leash on a flat collar, your dog can kind of feel what you're saying. If you have your leash on a prong caller, they can hear what you're saying very well. And that's why we use prong colors. Um, because that sensation, it's just delivered, um, effortlessly, right?

So now you can very delicately communicate to the dog through your leash or firmly if you need to, right? If you need to correct something, you can do that too. Uh, but you get the best of both worlds. You get that wide spectrum of intensity available to you at any time.

You can be gentle, you can be firm, you can be middle of the road, you can get your dog's attention, you can correct them, you can help them settle, you can do whatever you need to do. Um, and they can feel it though very, very easily through a prong collar. If you put your dog's leash on a harness, they feel nothing, right? All they feel is the harness pressing against their body. They cannot feel leash, pressure leash, tension leash pops, right? Hardly at all. So it's essentially like you're just pushing mute on the phone. So you completely cut off your hands.

Like you completely lose that entire realm of communication with your dog. Uh, which is a huge mistake, especially if you're trying to stop pulling. Okay? So some of the most common advice we see is to stop every time the dog pulls. Okay, that's not gonna work. <laugh>, how do I know? Because I've done it and because a million other people have done it and it doesn't work.

19:00 — Kati dismisses stopping whenever a dog pulls as ineffective based on her experience.

So, okay, dog pulls and you stop. Then they go back to pulling and you stop, then they go back to pulling and you stop. Okay, have fun with that walk. Count me out. There's going the other way, right? Which is just another version of that. And it's like, okay, you can get fucking dizzy going back and forth. Your dog pulls you this way, then they pull you that way, then they pull you this way, then they pull you that way. That's not gonna work. Hey, if you don't believe me, go try it. It doesn't work.

Okay?

Um, <laugh>. So the other advice is often like obviously rewarding the dog when they're walking next to you, like carrying treats and feeding them for walking next to you. Which to be honest, there might be a little value in that. Um, I don't have any problem with rewarding a dog when they're next to you and they're walking nicely. Like that's great, but that alone isn't going to work because treats alone doesn't work for anything when it comes to trying to modify a behavior when it comes to trying to eliminate something, trying to stop a behavior, trying to create an inhibition, which we are, right?

We're saying do not pull. So we're not just saying, Hey, I like it when you walk next to me. We also have to say do not pull me and treats aren't going to work for that.

Um, the funniest advice I think I've seen, I saw this morning on social media, <laugh>, Facebook feeds me this stuff. Um, this woman is struggling with leash walking. Her dog pulls her. I think it was a husky quote unquote rescue, of course, right? They all are. And the advice she got for the leash pulling was that her leash was way too short. When you walk with a short leash, get ready for this. Are you sitting, when you walk with a short leash, you force the dog to pull. Wow, that's hilarious because we walk all of the dogs here on a short leash and guess how many of them pull?

None of them.

22:00 — Kati ridicules the recommendation to use a 50-foot leash for stopping leash pulling.

So that's some bullshit. But that's all you find on social media is bullshit. Uh, so the, the advice was to get along line to get a 50 foot leash. So yeah, guys, uh, I guess I'm out of the job now if you wanna stop leash pulling, like just get a 50 foot leash problem solved. So when you see everyone walking through the city with their dog 50 feet away from them on a long line and honestly probably still pulling <laugh>, um, you heard it here first, right? You heard it here first. That's the next up and coming trend.

Wanna fix leash pulling? Just get a 50 foot leash and your problem will be solved. You're welcome. No, that's the advice that I saw this morning on Facebook that made me chuckle. Um, so for the love of God, and I wanted to say this, but I, I didn't, I controlled myself, believe it or not. I can do it a little bit. Sometimes <laugh>, not always. Um, I wanted to say, just tell your dog to stop fucking pulling ta tell your dog not to pull you.

Five minutes is all you need. People don't like that answer. They hate that answer. Back in the days when I was on Rover and I was dog sitting and more or less offering free training to people when I dog sat for them, I remember having a couple that came to meet me and their problem was they also had leash pulling, I believe. But the main problem they were concerned about was jumping. And when I told them that I could stop jumping right away, they exchanged a look and they left <laugh>, which is hilarious to me.

Pansies people are so soft and so ridiculous. Just tell your dog not to do the damn thing. But you know, part of the problem with that is not just that people are soft, but that they need the virtue trophy. They need the saint trophy or even the victim trophy, right? If you actually fix their problem, they can't be a victim anymore.

That's a problem for a lot of folks. Guys, you can stop leash pulling today. Now hopefully, if you are someone who's in that boat and you do have a dog that pulls you, this should be good news, this should be exciting. This should give you a second of, oh my God, well I'm gonna do this right? Our lives are literally gonna be better. They're gonna be different. They're gonna change overnight because they can. And it's no hard. But you have to tell your dog not to pull you. And the easiest way to do that is to provide a negative consequence for pulling.

And the easiest way to do that is on a prong collar with a leash pop. So you have to learn how to deliver a leash pop, okay? Just putting a prong collar on your dog that won't necessarily do anything with some dogs, it will, if they're super sensitive, especially when the sensation is novel and and they're not used to it and they're kind of like, oh, what is that?

26:00 — Kati recommends a prong collar paired with a properly delivered leash pop.

Um, might slow them down quite a bit, but a lot, a lot, a lot of dogs guys are gonna pull you like a freight train in a prong collar. And if they don't do it today, in a few weeks or a month or whatever, they're gonna get used to it and they're just gonna pull you like a truck. So it's really up to you to learn the leash handling. It's not complicated, but you have to learn how to deliver a pop. Okay? It's very snappy. We call it checking the leash, right? So basically that's, that's your way of disagreeing with a behavior, right?

Because other than that, the collar doesn't do much. It looks gnarly. People are afraid of it, but the collar itself doesn't hurt guys. It just sits there. It's just a collar. It doesn't do anything right? All the control is in your hands.

And so most of the time the dogs are walking, they don't even notice it, they don't even feel it. It's not doing anything. It's not engaged, right? And it functions like a Martin Gale. So it will constrict when you pull the leash. So it kind of squeezes. That's what it does more than anything. It squeezes, right? So you get pressure for a moment. Um, and so a really quick snappy, what we call a pop is how we disagree with leash pulling. And the firmness you use just depends on the dog. Some dogs are very sensitive and all you need is just a little flick of the wrist.

Some dogs are extremely obtuse and strong and big and powerful and you actually have to use like both arms and all of your strength. Um, and we've had dogs, it's like across that entire spectrum, but that's it. The dog pulls you that leash gets tight, it's a leash pop.

After a few times the dog starts going, oh hey, every time I walk ahead of them and that leash gets tight, they deliver this uncomfortable consequence. And it's helpful if you pop toward the back, right? 'cause that's directional information. So the dog starts to forge ahead. The leash starts to get tight, you'll move into the dog a little bit 'cause you need some slack in your leash in order to get a good pop. So that might sound confusing, but when you go to try delivering a leash pop, you'll see if your leash is tight and you go to pop it, it doesn't really work.

You end up just pulling the dog. Well, pulling the dog can make things worse, right? That's almost like when they're on a harness. And again, you've got that pressure pushing back on them. So they're pulling through it. That's not what you wanna do.

It has to be poppy, which means you've gotta sometimes move your hand toward the dog so you can get some slack in that leash and then deliver a nice snappy pop preferably toward the back, right? 'cause it tells the dog move back very quick, very snappy. Um, and whatever firmness you need for that dog, they're all different. So that's one way, that's the easiest way in most cases. Now, some dogs that are really, really challenging, um, like the obtuse ones I just mentioned, um, especially if you're not super strong, it might not be real practical for you to do that through the leash.

And an eco might be easier. And we don't overcomplicate that, okay? We teach the dog. When the leash gets tight, your e-collar is gonna turn on and it's gonna turn on at an uncomfortable level.

And I, I don't normally even say anything because I don't need to. I let the leash tightness be my marker. Meaning I have a nice short leash. I didn't mention that earlier, but your leash should always be short but loose, right? It has to be long enough that there's some slack, but it should be short. Don't give your dog six feet leash if you don't want them pulling. You guys, wrap that leash up in your hand so that your dog is next to your side, okay? And when your dog is next to your side, there should be a little slack in that leash as they start to move ahead of you, that's going to eat up your slack, right?

30:00 — Keeping slack beside the handler lets the leash tighten as the dog moves ahead.

And that's why you'll need to move into the dog to deliver that leash pop. Now if we're using an e-collar or both, um, then what would happen is the dog would forge ahead.

The leash would get tight. I would just turn on the eco at what level, whatever level they clearly don't like. And when I did that, especially the first few times, I'm gonna use my leash to guide the dog back next to me and that leash will get loose again. And then I'll shut off the e-collar. So after a handful of those, right, the dog goes, oh, hey, I forge ahead. Leash gets tight. That becomes very uncomfortable. Um, but I move back next to my handler and that goes away and ta-da, the dog stops forging ahead and pulling it is like magic.

But it's not magic, right? It's skill. It's effort, it's work. But it doesn't take long. Your dog's not an idiot, right? And you don't have to be mad, you don't have to be frustrated. You are not trying to be mean. This is very matter of fact guys. You're just tying an uncomfortable consequence to that pulling leash gets tight. It's uncomfortable for the dog. Why do so many people have a problem with that? Why do we wanna make it so easy and so comfortable for the dog to pull us? And then we wanna cry and whine that our dog is pulling and we can't fix it.

We've tried everything. No, you haven't tried everything. Try telling the dog not to pull.

Make it suck to pull you down the road. This is common sense frankly, right? And I'm not saying hurt the dog. We don't have to hurt the dog. We don't injure the dog. We don't harm the dog. We don't take out our anger on the dog. We don't do any of that stuff. We just make it really uncomfortable to pull. Right? There is a negative consequence that you're not gonna like, it's gonna be uncomfortable. I'll just say it's gonna hurt if you pull me. Don't do it. Big whoop, right? I can stop the pulling today.

No negative side effects. You know what the negative side effect is? Your dog stops pulling, your dog doesn't like pulling anymore. That's the negative side effect.

And we have gotten some world class pullers in here. We have absolutely gotten some that we could not fix with just the leash and prong. We had to pair eco stimulation with that leash tension and that pulling. We had someone in here for private lessons not that long ago that had a lab that was like that. And especially, um, the girl. 'cause there were two owners. It was a male and a and a woman. Um, she was probably not quite strong enough to deliver the intensity needed to get through to the dog. Like he would not have even noticed her.

I really struggled with it and I'm pretty good at it. So when we get cases like that, we show people, Hey, your dog starts to move ahead of you. That leash gets tight. Turn on your eco right? And then we can kind of experiment in that lesson to see which intensity the dog goes, Ooh, I don't really like that. What do I do? Right? And then we just show the dog, Hey, come back here. Loosen up that leash. It shuts off.

And by the time they leave, dog's not pulling anymore. That's it. It's like you just gotta, you gotta have the conversation. But so all of this crazy advice out there. Carry treats, reward, walking next to you, distract the dog with treats, critter, turn around, stop every time the dog pulls you, you stop. Um, get a 50 foot leash. It's insane. It's, everybody has gone mad and they, what happens is it gets dragged out, right? This is a thing I can fix today. This will get dragged out for weeks, months, years for the rest of the dog's life even.

34:00 — Kati contrasts her immediate training approach with advice involving treats, distractions, stopping, and long…

Because it will never change doing any of those things that we mentioned. Never. It, it just will not change, right? Until the dog gets old. Maybe right? When my dog's 11 and dead inside and doesn't wanna pull anymore. So, alright, good for you. I don't really wanna wait until then. <laugh>,

You know, it's crazy. And I could get into all of the garbage about, you know, why people say you shouldn't do that and you shouldn't correct this or that, and how awful it is and why and how we're ignoring science and blah, blah blah. But that's another topic for another day. I would love to do an episode on that. <laugh>, I'm sure I have before I talk about it all the time. But there's another one coming just so you know. It's, it's brewing <laugh>. It's hard brewing, it's percolating. Um, but yeah, pulling is easy to stop.

But for the record, that's it. It's just, it's a negative consequence for pulling. And so I will say, I will leave you with this. It is important that your dog links that consequence to pulling. So one of the things we do have to think about is that sometimes when people aren't really adept at doing this, they're not rehearsed at doing this. They haven't done it before, um, they might not be as skilled, right? They might not be as precise and consistent. Even if they know in their head what to do, doesn't mean they're going to execute it that way, especially early on, right?

So if your dog isn't sure what's causing the consequence, then it's not gonna work, right? Or it's gonna take you longer. Um, or if your consequence is just not intense enough, you know, if your dog doesn't notice it, if your dog doesn't really care about it that much, it's not gonna work.

But if it is meaningful enough, your dog wants to avoid that consequence and it's clear to your dog what is causing it, the pulling will go away and it will go away quickly. Now, if we're talking about a dog that's super reactive around triggers, that is a little different. You have to deal with that underlying reactivity. But just general pulling, no. Like every time I, I smell something, every time I see anything I have to pull. No, that's pretty easy to stop, right? Going crazy into a tizzy, um, barking, growling, lunging at dogs like that is a little bit deeper of an issue.

37:00 — General pulling is easier to address than reactivity involving barking, growling, or lunging.

And a lot of times we're using the marker word no, followed by a correction. You can do that for pulling absolutely. But a lot of times I actually make that a silent process. I don't have to say anything because I'm very skilled at using the leash pressure, using the pulling itself as my marker. But it's so important to be consistent. 'cause if you're not, your dog will not pick up on that pattern. And what I mean by that is the second, like especially if you're using your e-collar, okay? If you're using your e-collar as your consequence for pulling, it has to be super, super clear, super, super consistent when it turns on, right?

Because otherwise your dog thinks it's just random and they're trying to figure it out, right? They can't adjust their behavior if they don't know what's causing it. Um, and so timing is important, right? So you have to have your remote in your hand. Don't walk with it in your pocket. Guys. Leash gets tight, it turns on immediately. It doesn't shut off until the leash is loose, right? And your dog will pick that up guys super fast. They're real smart if you're consistent, right? So if you're not, then it's not that your dog is dumb, it's just that your pattern isn't clear, right?

If your pattern is random, your dog can't learn from that what to do and what not to do.

So being precise is important. Leash gets tight, it turns on every time, right? And if you're doing that and it's not going away, then it probably means, um, that your stim is too low, right? Your consequences too meaningless and depends on how intense your dog is. But if every time that leash gets tight, it's really uncomfortable right away the leash will stop getting tight. They'll stop pulling you. And this is something you can accomplish super, super fast. It's a technique that has worked wonders, uh, for many of our clients, especially when they don't have the arm strength to do a leash pop.

And just so you know, the number of damaged dogs shut down, dogs, damaged relationships that we've seen come out of this is zero. Hey guys, thanks for joining us today. I really hope you enjoyed the show. If there's a specific topic you'd like to hear discussed, you can send that to me directly via email or fan mail. Just jump down into the show notes. That information will be there for you. I really look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for supporting the show and I look forward to next time.