This is Monique talking here (Will and I share the account)
Back story: I am not the alpha of the home - Will is. Whatever Will says Nova does. Me, I'm the momma, Nova will listen and will do what I ask, sort of. He will do it, but not as quickly and pleasing as he does to Will. With that being said, I'm the one who gets more kisses. In fact that is the one command Will has trouble with Nova. Nova is okay on walks not great but that's being a puppy he's still in training.
Yesterday: I took over for a good 45 minute walk around the golf course and street (Street was a bad idea too many cars he wanted to 'play' with...lol). Then I took out again after he ate dinner. Since I have a harder time with walking him I started doing "Short leash" (We walk him with his harness so it can be tricky for me.) 20 minutes in we were great so as a reward I let the leash out some... Mistake #1 He went nuts. Running around - okay cute I thought = Mistake #2. Then the jump, bite my gloves off act started. I told him "Stop" he did for 2 seconds then bit me in the bum hard. So I had grabbed his muzzle "Stop, no bite". Then I let go = Mistake #3 I should had waited until he calmed down. He bit me again - I pinned him to the ground until he finally stopped biting at me. He got the picture and started to behave until we went inside and he refused to listen to me. Will had to step in and help.

This morning: I figured I would give the collar a try, I put it on as well as his harness just in case. HOLY CRAP Batman! He was a totally different dog. I did the "Short leash" he never lead me I lead him. He went were I wanted to. He listened and did commands outside with the kids running all around. I was excited, shocked, and happy. I felt bad because I didn't have enough treats to praise him when he did this but I did praise him with a "Good boy" and scratch behind the ears. So I in love with his collar now. I don't know if I should go back to the harness just yet.

So my question to you all have you had the same thing happen with collar? Or am I just imaging things?

We had a very similar situation with the biting. We also have the same situation where Crispin listens to what I say almost immediately and blows my wife off unless he feels like it (teenagers, am I right?).

We started introducing breaks into his walk where if we see him get overly excited we just stop and pet him for a bit until he calms down. We also started rewarding him for looking at something we tell him to and then back at us for direction on what to do next. (See Take a Break and Look At That games from Leslie McDevitt's "Control Unleashed" book). These ended up working better than changing his harness. We now get consistently better walks no matter if he's in collar, pulling harness, or walking harness.

It seems pretty viable that he would pull less in the collar depending on what kind of harness you have. It's much easier for Crispin to pull in his pulling harness than in a harness like the Easy Walk or his collar. He also might have just associated the harness with pulling.

When Saphire was very young she would pull like mad on the collar and choke herself which scared the crap outta me and so I switched to a harness. It immediately made things better. I was able to leash train her without her choking and me feeling like I was horrible for letting her.

THEN she hit the teenage phase and wanted to pull in the harness. I switched back and now we have no problems. We still use a harness for pulling and now she seems to understand that she can pull in harness but not on the collar.

What is the magic collar?

Huskydad wrote:

What is the magic collar?

I would like to know too.

A normal everyday nylon Petsmart Collar.

So far so good (Knock on wood). He did try to jump bite an hour ago when I was walking him but didn't get to far since he was short leashed. lol.

So the harness is pull fun time and he knows the difference when I switch to it. (I still put both on him when I walk him).

I spoke too soon... he is just an ass when it comes to walking. I'm 99% sure the neighbors thing I'm terrible because I grabbed his muzzle until he stopped winning. (The whole time saying calm, no bite, stop..).... he is driving me nuts.

I just the 3 hours of walking outside plus 2 hours of play plus 1 hour of training plus car rides isn't enough.