Maybe you can relate to this. You know, it was really frustrating for me to walk my dog Sadie when I brought her home from the pound. This neck pulling dog was a huge challenge to me.
I had envisioned these nice walks we could take, both of us getting some exercise, but it just turned into a struggle all the time.
She’d be pulling me down the street sniffing and whatever dogs do, and wouldn’t even pay attention to anything I said to her. I thought I could change this and I tried a choke chain. That worked for about one day until she got used to it. Then my neighbors started giving me all kinds of devices to put on her neck.
One was a prong collar used for a dog twice her size and I really didn’t know how to use it. It basically fell off her so that didn’t work. Then I tried this thing that went over her muzzle and made her turn her head when I pulled it. She HATED that. Plus it was rubbing off all the fur on her face. So I passed on that.
Then, I figured I’d just let her off her leash and let her go “free.” Big Mistake! I found out one of her favorite games was to play keep away – from me. And she’s one of the fastest dogs I’ve seen so there was no way I was going to catch her.
So we went back to walks on the leash. I was getting very concerned because all the pulling was starting to damage her vocal chords. I could tell because her bark was getting hoarse. That was kind of sad and I mentioned it to my other neighbor, Pam.
Pam reminded me of a dog trainer she knew that she was going to employ when she got a dog for herself. His name was John Spieser from dogheart.
Well since I met John my life has changed and he has spurred me on to provide better information about dog training and how to build a connection with your dog through this blog and through the Ambassadors for Dogs training programs. Stay tuned for more.