Do you find yourself competing with your pitbull pulling on the leash? Do you find yourself struggling on a walk because your pup id dragging you everywhere you go?
Here we go over why your pitbull may be pulling on the leash and how to achieve a better walk!
Why Is Your Pitbull Pulling On Leash?
The first question to ask yourself is why is your pitbull pulling on leash!
The causes for your pitbull pulling on leash can vary from dog to dog here are the most common reason why dogs pull on the leash.
3 Most Common Reasons Why Dogs Pull On Leash
Being reinforced:
Many dogs pull on leash simply because there unknowingly being reinforced. To better understand this let’s take a look at dog pulling from your dogs perspective, more often than not dogs pull because your pup learned that he can get access to something your he want if your dog just pulls hard enough.
An example of this is a dog that wants to sniff a certain smell, your dog pulls towards the smell and with enough pulling your dog learns that if he pulls hard enough hell gets what he wants.
On-leash Greetings:
The second most common reason dogs pull on leash is because you’ve made it a habit to allow your dog to greet other dogs on leash, allowing on-leash greetings consistently will result in a dog that has to pull to greet other dogs because it has become a habit.
Fearfulness:
Dogs pull on leash if they feel anxious and fearful. It’s not uncommon for a dog to pull out of fear and anxiety. all animals have a fight or flight response depending on your specific dog, your pup’s reaction may be to “fight” which manifests in lunging barking and growling on the leash to create space from what is making him fearful and anxious.
While dogs who choose flight manifest in a dog who is sporadic in the way it walks always pulling in various directions to escape what is making your dog uncomfortable.
Naturally Walks Faster:
The fourth reason you find your pitbull pulling on leash is because dogs naturally walk faster than us humans, our walking pace is drastically slower than a dog’s natural walking, dogs rather trot than walk.
Never Taught how to walk on a leash:
the last reason you see your pitbull pulling on leash is simply because your dog has never learned the skill of walking politely without pulling on the leash.
It’s important to understand that dogs aren’t born with the skill on how to walk without pulling. It’s your job as your pup’s owner to take the time to teach your dog how to walk on a leash, at the end of the day can you be upset at your for something you never took the time to teach him?
How To Begin Teaching Your Dog To Stop Pulling On Leash
There various ways to begin teaching your dog to stop pulling on leash here we will cover three different ways to stop your pitbull from pulling on the leash!
Luring:
The first method to stop your dog from pulling is luring! Essentially you want to use your dog’s food or his favorite treats to lure your pup into the heel position.
Every time your dog tries to walk ahead of you, you want to use your dog’s food to redirect his attention and lure your pup into the heel position. Only allowing your dog to get access to the reward when your pup is walking in the heel position.
the most important aspect of this is your dog has to be food motivated!
If your dog isn’t food motivated try using a high-value reward like a hot dog or simply use your dog’s food to work on having your pup walk in heel position.
Where is the heel position?
The heel position is when your dog’s paws are either at the end of your heel or behind never in front!
Teach Leash Pressure:
Leash pressure is essentially teaching your dog to follow you and the leash by releasing the tension on the leash when your dog walks in the given direction.
For this, to work you need a training collar that increases the discomfort your dog feels the more your pup pulls.
Some of these collars are slip leads and prong collars both collars increase the discomfort your dog feels either when your dog pulls on the leash or you apply tension on the leash.
What we want to essentially teach your dog is that although you may feel this minor discomfort the way to make it all go away is walking in the direction of our body and the leash.
The Easiest way to teach this is to apply consistent tension on the leash either to the left or right side of your dog’s neck, the moment that your dog takes a step in the direction you applied tension on the leash, you release all the tension and ensure there is slack on the leash.
Doing this will teach your dog that walking towards the leash stops all the discomfort your pup may feel.
To learn more about the prong collar read our article about prong collar for dogs
The training collars we use are Herm Sprenger stainless steel prong and Mendota slip leads
Combination of 1 and 2
The last way to teach your dog to walk on a leash is a combination of both steps one and two. The combination of luring paired with leash pressure will teach your dog to take direction from you and the leash while being rewarded for being in the heel position!
Things to keep in mind:
Don’t allow your dog to get access to something he wants if your pup is pulling towards it.
Remember if your gets access to what it’s pulling towards, your dog just learned that if he pulls hard enough he will get what he wants
Stop on-leash-greetings
On-leash greeting will creat expectation indoor dogs mind that he has to “go say hi” to every dog, teach your dog that there is a time place everything and on a walk is not the time to greet other dogs on a walk
Be consistent
If your not consistent your dog will begin to test you to see what he can and cannot get away with, so if you want your dog to be consistently not pulling, you have to be consistent.
Conclusion
A pitbull pulling on leash can be taught to walk politely! With consistent training and repetitions, your pup will learn to walk politely next to you remember what you reward and allow will continue so if you want your pup to continue walking politely reward your pup and prevent your dog from leading you on the walk!
To awaken your dog’s true potential contact us here or Give us a call!
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