Bought this today for Giada (7 months, 45#). She had started to pull on our walks again after months of training, it was like she had totally forgotten:( After putting this on the first time she walks GREAT! I really can't believe it worked so well so fast. We have taken 3 walks and all have been excellent!!
I bought mine at Petsmart, but looks like the have it on line at Amazon.com for 1/2 the price.....wish I would have known. It is an excellent buy non the less:)
I have used the Easy Walk harness for 2 years, and it is an absolute lifesaver! It has turned our twice-daily walks from a pulling contest to a pleasure.
Jack is 3.5 yrs old and weighs 77 lbs. He used to drag me into the street trying to get to another dog, squirrel, etc. With a neck like a bull, no collar had any effect, and I am personally opposed to prong collars anyway. The beauty of this harness is, the leash attaches to a ring at the FRONT of the dog's chest. This ring is on a sliding-type band which moves in the direction of the leash. If the dog pulls, the leash slides to the side closest to you, and the dog ends up turned around facing you; instead of going forward, as he wants to do, he ends up in the opposite direction, going nowhere. Because all dogs naturally move forward, this is not desirable to the dog, and he very quickly learns to stop pulling so that he can continue moving along on his walk. The best part is, there is NO pain, no choking, no danger, and only very slight pressure where the soft harness bands run under the dogs front "armpits". And since YOU are doing nothing to cause the abrupt turn-around, the dog self-corrects rather than associating it with you.
At the time I bought the harness, it was only available on the Gentle Leader website, and I paid full price...worth every penny. There are a variety of sizes and colors available on line that I have not seen in the stores.
Yeah, it's very effective for Butter too. I bought it from ebay when Butter was 8 months old. It really has much better control over plain collar, and put less stress on him.
I have used a gentle leader for years and it is wonderful! My first use was with my afghan hounds. One of them would pull until she would literally choke. At first they would throw themselves on the ground and refuse to walk. I waited until they got up and began walking. It became our routine. When goldendoodle Zeus outgrew his puppy harness, I put one on him. No problem. Today I can walk 3 large dogs with one hand! One of the best things ever!
Hi Linnea:
I use the Gentle leader all the time with Jack, but he was an adult dog when I got him, and we aren't going to do any type of therapy, CGC, etc. I would think it would be fine to use the harness for now; but she IS going to have to be trained to walk nicely on a loose lead (wearing a collar) without pulling. Maybe you could ask Adina or the others here who are already doing therapy work if there would be any harm in it.
With The Delta Society you can test with a gentle leader halter or gental leader harness. The only thing is that if you test with the harness, the dog has to wear the harness on visits. I used the halter with Steve when he was younger but continued to work with him a lot on leash walking with a regular collar. Around 2 he calmed down quite a bit and something clicked and he quit pulling (finally!). He was able to pass the Delta test on a regular collar. As far as I know, TDI will not let you test with any type of special collar or harness. Anyone registered with TDI please correct me if I am wrong about that.
We have a gentle leader too!!!!! My hubby does not need to use it with Bear, but I do. When I have him on a chain all he does is pull. After I put it on, he did not pull................it was AMAZING!!!
Permalink Reply by Ali on November 19, 2008 at 11:12pm
I have the gentle leader head collar. It is amazing. She can do anything with it on still, so it is not restraining her mouth movements it just scrunches her face if she starts to pull a little bit. It is so easy to use I can walk her with my pinky. I do not use it all the time. I use it when we go to the pet store, the vet, and when I walk her in areas that have lots of dogs. When she has it on, she barks less, and is more well behaved at only 5 months old! It is seriously amazing, its like a completely different dog, still loving and all. I highly recommend this product.
I have the Gentle Leader harness for Murphy. I highly recommend it! The pulling stopped as soon as I started using it. Another great plus is that if the harness gets damaged you can send it in for a free replacement. (Murphy chewed the first one so I sent it back for replacement ;-)
Well, it definitely stops the pulling...and fast! I have not really used the regular collar much in situations where Jack might be tempted to pull...mainly around other dogs...so I don't know how much of a "transfer" effect there might be. The Easy Walk works so well, there hasn't really been much reason to go back to just the collar.
I was in the pet supply store yesterday, and a man was looking for a harness for his 11-year-old wheaten terrier. His dog never really did learn to stop pulling in all these years, and now she has neck & spine problems, so he was looking for a harness to take the pressure off her neck. Of course, I recommended the GL Easy Walk. I really love it!
If you REALLY put 110% in your training, you may be able to go to another collar. I have no reason to ever stop using it..................... we'll see how see is @ 2 years of age, but for myself this will most likely be the way we always walk Giada:)
I use this harness also, when I don't have time to correct the dogs constantly and remind them of their good behaviors. Like when we're walking (fast!) to the school bus in the morning. The harness works fine, but I wouldn't substitute leash training for it.