Your dog drags you down the street

Leash pulling

A leash is a tool for leading your dog. Pulling is your dog leading you. Those two words fight each other. It's an oxymoron.

At first the pulling was annoying, but you allowed it — and without knowing, you reinforced it. Maybe you bought a nice new harness, because someone told you it would help and wouldn't choke your dog. Now they pull you every walk, and they've started barking, even lunging, at other dogs and at people. You're both frustrated, so you turn around and go home. And here you are.

Why is your dog pulling on the leash?

Your dog isn't trying to be the boss of you. Your dog is doing what its drives tell it to do.

Every dog carries four instinctive drives — prey, social, civil, and defense. Every dog carries them in different amounts. What makes one dog pull is not what makes the next dog pull. That's why the collar that worked for your neighbor's dog does nothing for yours.

On top of the drive sits the opposition reflex. Put pressure on a dog and the dog leans into it. That's why sled dogs wear harnesses — the harness spreads the pressure across the chest and shoulders, and the dog drives forward into it. It's built to make a dog pull. That's the tool you were handed to stop the pulling.

And underneath all of it, pulling works. Every step forward on a tight leash pays your dog again. A drive that gets paid every day gets stronger every day. That's the progression you've been watching, and it's why the barking showed up.

How we stop the pulling

We stop paying the pull, and we use your dog's own drives to bring it back to you.

First your dog's temperament is evaluated — drives, disposition, engagement. A confident dog towing you and a worried dog fleeing ahead of you may look the same from behind but need much different handling. The evaluation tells us which way to work your dog.

Then your dog gets a map: the foundation first, the handling and training the walk depends on, then chapter 38 itself. You'll be the one holding the leash, and we teach you what to do with it. The leash stops being a source of fight and becomes a positive conversation tool.

The finished picture isn't a dog locked in heel for an hour. It's a dog on a loose leash, aware of you, moving with you — and heel there when you ask for it.

20+ years · author of Building A Solid Canine · every dog is evaluated first

Two ways to start.

Bring your dog to a Saturday.

Garrett reads your dog live at the Saturday workshop in Placerville, CA — that's a Working Evaluation, $200. You get the full day, the printed workbook and the full book, and your dog's written route through it. Every dog is evaluated first. Bite histories welcome with honest disclosure.

Or we come to you.

An In-Home Session at your house, up to two hours, with the same workbook, book, and written route.