# Pulling to the point of a Blue Tongue



## Rilelen (Jan 11, 2015)

There's a lot of stuff you can try. What worked well with Abby is learning that pulling = we're going backwards (not turning around, but literally walking backwards, with her facing us). Not pulling = we continue forwards. 

We started inside the house with things she finds exciting and would want to run towards (e.g., extra yummy food, the open front door), just to get the idea in her head. Everytime she gets to the end of the leash, even before she started pulling, we'd back up about ten feet. Turn around and try again. As long as she doesn't pull, we continue forwards. The moment, she starts pulling - we reverse and back up 10 feet. If we go forward and she pulls again, we back up even farther, 20 feet. Basically, the goal was that we were either backing up or walking politely - standing still and staring at the thing she wants is too intrinsically rewarding for Abby. So standing still and staring also counts as cause for backing up. Basically we back up until her attention is back on us and off whatever is distracting her. It took a lot of attempts at first, but she did get it. 

The big thing for us to remember was that a dog outside is waaaaaaaaaaaay more exciting than food on the floor of the living room. So when we moved to dogs and people, we basically had to start over at square one. It went a lot faster, though, since the basic idea was there in her brain ("The only way to get what I want is to walk slowly towards it"). We do usually need a reminder or two if she sees one of her favorite dogs when we're out and about, since it's not automatic yet. But backing up once or twice and then having her walk politely over to the dog is a zillion times better from where we started!

Edited to add: You also might want to work with him on overarousal separately from the pulling. If the reason for the pulling is that he's getting too excited about other dogs, you might want to address that separately first. I think I posted this in another thread, but there's a couple games we played with Abby that helped soothe the edge off of her frantic "MUST GO SEE THE OTHER DOG RIGHT NOW"-ness. 

One game was "Spot the person!" (or "Spot the dog!" in this case). We played this in a busy park or sidewalk. Basically, we sat down together, with a pile of treats. Every time a dog (or person, we did people too b/c people are too exciting) approaches, wait for your dog to look at that dog, and then treat him. Continue to praise and treat everytime he looks at the approaching dog. This is counter-intuitive (shouldn't you praise him for looking at you?), but the goal of this game is to get him maintain his calm when he's looking at other dogs. He can't do that if he doesn't look at other dogs. So everytime he looks at an approaching dog, praise and treat. Once the dog passes you and is gone, no more praise and treats for looking. If he loses his mind and gets too excited and tries to head for them, no praise, no treats. Only calmly looking at approaching dogs elicit treats. 

The goal here is to lower his arousal threshold - how close can the dogs get before he loses his mind? Over time, the distance should get smaller and smaller as he gets better and better at exposing himself to the source of arousal (dog!!!!!) and maintaining his calm (look!!! just look!!!! only looking!!) as they come closer and closer. In addition, it helps disrupt his cycle of "see dog - total focus on dog - nothing exists but other dog", by interjecting you into the middle of that loop with your treats. Essentially, it helps teach him to break his focus on the other dog and redirect it to you. The end goal is that when he sees a dog, he'll start anticipating by turning to you ("LOOK MOM I SAW A DOG, I LOOKED AT A DOG, DID YOU SEE ME, WHERE IS MY PRAISE") instead of running hellbent at the other dog.


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## Wolfeye (Sep 15, 2015)

I'm reading the book "The Art of Raising a Puppy" by the Monks of New Skete, and just read the chapter where they comment on electronic collars. I'm on their side in this hotbutton issue. If it involves the dog's safety, you do whatever it takes to fix the problem.The first step, in their opinion, is to seek advice or training from a professional dog trainer. In some cases though, a shock collar simply makes sense, and they can be used humanely.


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## TiffanyGolden (Dec 6, 2015)

Rilelen: Amazing advice! I have been trying the walking in the other direction and its appearing to help until yesterday we walked in the other direction he kept looking and then swung me back to the point the leash slipped out of my hands and he began greeting the other dog. It's was chaos! As he grows into his teenage stage more his drive to see other dogs is increasing. We have been making walks very short for this reason, no polite walking = no walking. At first Zack believe Duke was just poorly trained due his lack of time, but later I realized it's a mixture of time and his personality. Duke is constantly overaroused and high strung. I have burn marks from holding on the leash tightly while he pulls. We now have a extreme leash with a large handle, which is helping tremendously and is 4ft long. 

Anyways, The park game sounds wonderful and exactly what Duke needs! It's crazy to think he would rather die than live, just to sniff another dogs behind.


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## Rilelen (Jan 11, 2015)

Duke sounds a lot like Abby, when left to her natural devices.  It can get better! Honestly, Abby *knows* a ton of behaviors, but when she's that overaroused, her brain literally isn't functioning anymore. It's like when I see a spider in the bathtub when I'm taking a shower - goodbye brain! We had to bring her arousal level down far enough that she was able to function and remember all those nifty things we had taught her (like "sit" and "don't kill yourself"!). 

We stopped and did a lot of work on overarousal when she was about 6 or 7 months old (and getting big enough that I couldn't physically control her unless we were on a gentle leader or head halter type leash). It wasn't quick, but it's paid off a lot (that plus simply getting older and gaining some maturity too - at 19 months, she's way better able, mentally, to work through her overarousal and calm herself instead of just exploding ).


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Prong collar, and someone to teach you how to use it correctly. Guaranteed fix IF USED RIGHT and NOT cruel at all. Really really. Tito never needed one, he was just a gentleman from the get-go. Tiny and Toby both learned very quickly from the collar, and became a pleasure to walk.


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## Rkaymay (May 12, 2014)

Link and Zelda both benefit enormously from prong collars. I didn't do any correcting, just let them self-correct. They pull too hard, it hurts, they back off.


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## TiffanyGolden (Dec 6, 2015)

Thank you very much for the Prong Collar suggestion!

Zack bought Duke a prong collar last night after being out and about all day. We thought Duke would be a manic on the leash after not being on at least one walk but with the prong collar it was a huge game changer. He stayed at a heel position and when dogs came nearby he would try to go for them but the prong collar immediately stopped him. It took a few steps to get use to it for him, but a good hour walking paid off! It was a joy to walk with him!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

It's just a training tool like any other. They quickly learn to behave themselves, and then you will find they don't pull on it anymore. 
My 2 that wore them loved it when they heard the collars come out, they knew that it meant they were going to get to go somewhere fun.-


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## Piper_the_goldenpuppy (Aug 26, 2016)

Leash training is my least favorite part of having a dog. Piper and I are going through a little bit of this right now. It doesn't help that we are stopped on almost every single walk by someone who wants to pet her (puppies are just irresistible). We also are doing desensitization training, but I like the way you reinforced the behavior of just "looking" at a dog, Rilelen. Even the most high value treat is nothing compared to the excitement of a person or dog when they are right next to us. 

My last pup ended up with a gentle leader for a while. Sometimes you need something like that or a prong collar just to allow you to actually train them.


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