Killer has always pulled on her leash. She hates being contained. We let her run free when we can, but when there's lots of people around she has be on a leash. We took her to puppy training class thinking that might help with the pulling issue. We learned that if you hold a treat by your side as you walk your pup will walk right beside you looking up hoping for the treat. This works great when we do it, but it's not always super practical. I don't carry treats when I run, so she pulls. We don't carry treats when we're only going a short distance, so she pulls. We don't carry treats when our hands are full, so she pulls. She doesn't care if we stop moving, she tries to drag us with her. It makes us so sad to hear her wheezing and having a hard time breathing because she's pulling her collar so tight around her neck. So...we finally took the recommendations of many advice-giving friends and bought a Gentle Leader.
This thing works wonders. Whenever she pulls on the leash this collar pulls her head to the side, makes her stop dead in her tracks, and walk back to where we are. She obviously hates wearing it. Who wouldn't? For the first half of our walk she would frequently stop and try to paw the nose piece off. She finally accepted the fact that she wasn't going to get it off and eventually decided to walk with us. People who saw us walking gave us dirty looks and said things like "poor thing." But it isn't a muzzle. She can pant, drink water, and hold things in an open mouth with this collar on. And it doesn't hurt her at all; it just drives her crazy. I'm excited to try it out running with her. I'm also excited that it's hot pink so people will stop assuming Killer is boy.
On a side note, we played the longest game of Mexican train that any two people have ever played. Brad: 8, Courtney: 0.
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