husky not walking well on leash.

[jng2985]

He's about 9 months and has had basic training and does well except that he does not walk good on the leash. He has a choker collar only for the walks, but as long as he can get a little bit of air he will pull. i keep him on a short leash and attempt to correct him right as he starts to pull. I give an inch and he takes the whole damn 6 ft of leash.. It's getting to the point where walking is no longer fun..


any tips on how to start getting him to walk decent??

[cyber-sibes]

Sounds just like any young husky. Basically, it's training, training, training. And then more training.

Keep in mind that a husky pulling as hard as he can is a husky doing exactly what he was bred to do. Pulling is his job. You can't fight centuries of breeding. Expecting a husky to trot along side of you is simply not his nature. His nature is to pull whatever he's attached to, whether it's you or a sled.

But keep it fun, he's young & huskies tend to be pretty lively their first few years. If it isn't fun, he won't cooperate. Huskies are also quite stubborn.

He may not be getting enough exercise. If huskies are under-exercised, they can be a real handful, especially at the end of a leash. (Mine are really good at becoming "air-borne" on the end of a leash if I've skipped a walk.) Does he have somewhere fenced where he can run as fast as he can? If not, that will mean a lot of extra walking with you. Several husky owners I know use a Springer, an attachment for your bike that allows the dog to safely run alongside.

I've always found that playing chase or ball in a yard is good too. (Star would fetch for hours when she was that age.) And the good news is that huskies do mellow with age. Walking a mature husky is not at all like walking a juvenile. Give him a few years.

You might try using a gentle leader, sometimes that will help, I used one with my rottie-mix girl & the effect was instant. Walking her was like trying to walk a tank, I got dragged along. With the gentle leader, she walked with a slack leash. I was amazed.

[jng2985]

he gets a morning run of about 45 minutes and does great with the runs.

I have a big back yard and play a good part of the day "his game is fetch the ball come back to arms reach and as soon as he takes off" so we play fetch/chase and he enjoys it.


so i will keep working on it and see where it goes

[Karen]

Yes, often the key with huskies - besides the old "a tired Husky is a Good Husky" saying, is that you have to be more stubborn than he is. It may try you to the depths of your patience, but the reward in the end is well worth it! He's still a puppy at that age, so just keep training and training and training ... or give in and buy rollerblades!

[Freedom]

I was going to suggest a Gentle Leader, but I see Pat (cyber sibes) already did.

You can look at them here:

http://www.petedge.com/catalog/search.jsp?N=0&Nty=1&Ntk=AllSearch&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntt=gentle%20leader

[Giselle]

I personally don't like head halters. So my suggestion is: before you go out and get a head halter, I would first advise you to try and train with a regular nylon collar and leash.

Practice in a low distraction area, like the living room or backyard. Start walking your dog. As soon as you feel tension on the leash, STOP walking and abruptly turn around. Your dog will pull again. IMMEDIATELY stop and turn around. Dog will pull again. Again, immediately stop and turn around. Keep this brisk and fast fast fast! Keep moving!! Never stand in one place longer than 3 seconds. Keep moving. As long as your dog is pulling, you will keep stopping and turning around. After a while, your dog will start to give up and stop pulling. As soon as you sense this, reward him for walking close to you (a clicker is great for this). When he starts to give slack on the leash, you start doing random turns. When your dog follows you, click/treat and continue walking.

Then, practice practice practice! Practice in your living room, your backyard, your front yard, up and down your street, around the block, around the neighborhood, downtown, etc. Practice and don't give up before your dog does!

In the first stages, your dog will give you some slack on the leash and then randomly pull again because he doesn't really understand what the concept is. That's okay. Stop and turn around and do some circles, zig zags, figure 8's, etc. until he gives you slack again. Click/treat. Continue with your walk.

[polarpooch]

Every husky I've ever had has pulled on leash with a normal or choke collar. Annoying, but typical. I have a haltie, but none of my huskies ever did well with it, so it just sits in a drawer. I use a prong training collar (or pinch collar) on my dogs. Looks sadistic and evil, but it really isn't. The collar distributes the pressure all the way around the neck, so the dog doesn't choke, and is much less inclined to pull. Perfect for huskies, because they have nice, thick fur around their necks. You need to practice with it a little, but I find it works like a charm. Great for strong breeds that tend to walk YOU, rather than the other way around.

[Chris & Lindsay]

My boyfriend and I have/had the same problem with our 6 month black lab mix. We took her to PetSmart to try and find a solution to the problem. The salesperson suggested we try a no pull harness, so we strapped it on in the store, and instantly we saw results. We thought maybe we had been in there so long she wasn't quite as excited about going as she was originally, so just to test it out I dropped her and my boyfriend at the front of the aprartment complex to walk back. He said she didn't pull at all, and they passed people and other dogs along the way (she gets very excited when she sees other people or dogs). Just a suggestion from personal experience. I hope it helps!! :D

[bckrazy]

Listen to Giselle! Serrriously.

Fozzie used to be a serial puller on walks. He could heel perfectly, but if he wasn't heeling, he was straining at the end of the leash... and it's possible that he's part Husky. He doesn't look big, but he's powerful. It must be his low center of gravity, hehe. Corrections did not work. I tried out a choker, just for kicks, and he just strangled himself. Same with a martingale.

I started out with the pivot method, as I've heard that works with a LOT of dogs! Unfortunately, not with Fozzie. As long as we were moving, he was happy. The "be a tree" method worked amazingly well, though! Every time the leash tensed up, I froze. I waited until the leash was slack and he looked toward me, then continued. Repeat, repeat, repeat! One of the tricky issues with this method is... say your dog pulls toward a bush to sniff/pee, and you freeze. The dog is being rewarded for pulling now, because he gets to sniff interesting stuff. If I see Fozzie making a bee-line for shrubbery, I move away so that it's out of his "reach", and then freeze. The key is consistency! Do it on every walk, every time the leash is tight. If you get lazy and decide to let him pull for one walk... you are basically back-tracking to the very beginning. So keep it up, and he'll come around!

As far as collars, I prefer rolled leather adjusted properly (with room for 2 fingers, snugly) at the top of the neck. Choke chains are simply a bandaid, and are often used completely improperly.

[Sighthounds4me]

Every husky I've ever had has pulled on leash with a normal or choke collar. Annoying, but typical. I have a haltie, but none of my huskies ever did well with it, so it just sits in a drawer. I use a prong training collar (or pinch collar) on my dogs. Looks sadistic and evil, but it really isn't. The collar distributes the pressure all the way around the neck, so the dog doesn't choke, and is much less inclined to pull. Perfect for huskies, because they have nice, thick fur around their necks. You need to practice with it a little, but I find it works like a charm. Great for strong breeds that tend to walk YOU, rather than the other way around.

I could NOT agree more! I hate chokers - they put too much pressure on the trachea, and over time can cause damage. Pinch collars avoid this, by distributing the pressure over the whole neck. And they simulate how a dam would correct her pups: by biting on the neck.

If you still think they are sadistic, try one on. Really. I did, before I put it on my dog. And I pulled on it, from behind (against my throat). It was very uncomfortable, but it did not hurt.

But I found that as soon as I slapped it on him, he stopped pulling. It took a very, very small correction to get his attention, and then I could praise him for doing the right thing. He learned quickly, then I could go back to a regular martingale. I still have to use it on occasion, but that's because I don't walk him often, and he forgets.