Walking with a Halti

If Ruth is ever going to make it to standards show ring we need to learn to walk properly. Now this is something that must be taught from an early age. When you first take your puppy out on a lead its quite exciting to have them sniffing everything but now is the time to start training. With highly intelligent dogs its easy to treat a dog - at your leg, and continue to reassure it whilst it walks next to you. But if like me you own a terrier - or something a little more guided by its eyes or nose its really frustrating to teach a good walk to heel.

We tried the treating at heel with a standard collar and lead but its recently got too much for my shoulders. I don't like harnesses, ask yourself when does any animal wear a harness? Horses wear them for pulling trees, dogs wear them for pulling sleds. So why would you put a harness on something to teach it not to pull? My first few years of employment were in my parents Pet Shop - and I grew up in that store, so have always been giving pet advice. And if you have a dog that pulls on the lead the best thing I can recommend (along with a lot of patience) is a halti head collar. Having not used one of these before on my own dogs it was a last resort for Ruth - but everything has been so unsuccessful that today I jumped in and gave it a go.

All I can say is WOW. What a difference. I tried it on Ruth in the store and she wasn't keen at first, when we got home I took her out for a walk around the block (about 25mins) in her new halti and after only 100m she had mastered it. Amazing, that quickly. The trick is to keep the lead slack at all times, don't walk slow on purpose - keep up your normal pace. Treat every few minutes when the lead is slack - and treat by your leg to keep the dog there. The halti isn't harmful - it works by closing the dogs mouth when it pulls - when they walk well, they can open their mouths again. Really the difference is astonishing. I will keep using it until we have walking at a heel mastered, then slowly phase it off for sometime untill walking is mastered. So, Watch this Space!