hi, does anyone have any advice for controlling disobedience outside? My husky Luna seems to behave fairly well inside. When we're outside, she doesn't listen, tries to drag me down the street, she doesn't obey any commands. Can anyone help me? it really sucks the enjoyment out of walking her.

What method of training did you use inside when training? Are you using any training tools, and what way did you use them? (No pull harnesses, slip chains, martingales, prong collars...) Depending on what you have been doing, it will determine what I would recommend. There are quite possibly hundreds of ways to address each problem depending on the combination of you and your dog.

Hi

This is quite an in depth subject. I help out at a dog training school and have done quite a bit of work with my 2 y-o and she loose lead walks really well. To answer the first part of the question getting her to focus on you, what I suggest is to get yourself a treat bag if you don't have one and when you are outside with her you want to use a high value treat. ie hot dog sausage (sorry for the pun). When she looses her focus, then you need to start feeding her to make sure that you are the most important thing in your life. To start with be quite generous with the treats so she knows good behaviour is well rewarded. You can also use a clicker to make a desired behaviour, but remember it is essential to treat after you click. There is a very good book called 100 Ways to Train the perfect Dog that 2 friends of mine wrote Sarah Fisher and Marie Miller and it takes you through all stage of training from basic training to advanced games and tricks.

Regarding the loose lead walking. The husky is bred to pull so you really you have to start with the basics, please do not use haltis or head collar they dont work on huskies and end up injuring them, Also please do not use choke chains, pinch collars, shock collars as they are just cruel.

I suggest using a soft fleece harness and a double ended lead, attached to the dog on the top of the harness and the front. I suggest a harness like the one we market, not because I trying sell it, but because we have developed it for exactly this purpose. You need to walk you dog with your double ended lead attached to two points on the harness, with one end of the lead in each hand and thumbs pointing downwards ... when the dog pulls you need to meet the pressure and melt away, not putting pressure on the leads, just meeting her pressure and once she does, let your hands relax. In time this should help. This is a Tellington TTouch ground work exercise, and we have a fact sheet on pur website which might be helpful, go to www.spiffydog.co.uk/pulling. Also you might want to look at the Tellington TTouch site as it will have information on ground work, or get yourself an excelent book Unlock Yoiur Dogs Potential by Sarah Fisher.

Sorry for sending you such a long missive, but it is not a short answer, all I can tell you is by putting in the work you will get your dog into balance.

Please contact me if you would like any more information

Regards

alex and Arapahoe

PS this is a quote form Unlock Your Dog's Potential you might find helpful ... “TTouch leading techniques improve proprioception and balance and
so can dramatically improve both posture and the behaviour of the dog.
Teaching a dog to walk calmly on a leash using two-point contact - the
handler having two distinct connections with the dog, usually with a
double-ended leash - can have a miraculous and often instantaneous
effect. There are many ways of using a two-point contact, so this
leading technique can be easily tailored to suite the individual dog’s
needs.” from Sarah Fisher’s 2007 book Unlock your Dog’s Potential, published by David and Charles

Were working with a head collar on my biggest puller (kiki) also we quit for now walking them together, they kinda like to compete with each other which makes the pulling worse. Their only 3 months old and its working well, But we have been working with them on obediance since they were 6 weeks old. The walking ahs only been the past month , I switched to the head collar because Kiki was hurting herself on the regular collar. She does well when walked alone with a treat, My goal is to get her back to a regular collar by spring because we will ahve our first conformation show in May.

Ironically she does really really well on collar and leash while doing a junior agility course ( no jumps) at the training facility we go to. Ill have to get Eric (my son) to video her in action, she loves the A Frame and tunnels especially and the opportunity for her to barrel through the course helps her burn off some energy. We keep them on leash (except when they do tunnels) for safty and to control their speed, she doesn't pull when shes aloud to run like this. Hopefully I'll have vids next week to show her off.

Hi mcdlabs. Have you looked at alternatives to head collars. I feel that on dogs with the head shape of huskies and mals they are not very effective as they tend to cut into the dog and cause pain. I have seen this time and time again at shows that we go both with huskies and mals. You might want to consider using a fleece harness and using a doubled ended TTouch leading technique. have a look at the comments above. I would love to demonstrate this to you, but Mitchigen is a bit far away! but you are likely to have a TTouch practitioner somewhere near you.

our pups look amazing, but if you try this technique working with one pup at a time in a matter of a week or two you should solve this problem. I have found that I have solved the problem with some dogs in a matter of 10 minutes as some dogs catch on really quickly as to what is required. We were at Manchester Dog show recently and a lady had 2 fantastic Mals that she said would not stop pulling, and after working with each of them for about 10 minutes we were not able to get them to pull when they wore a soft walking harness and had the dog attached with 2 connections. Trust me it works!!!