One of the most common comments from dog owners is 'I can't walk my dog he pulls me round the town'. Well I say let them pull, harness the inner draft dog and give him what he wants. Many dogs have been bred to pull as it was not that long ago that in order to get any load from A to B you needed to carry it either on your own back or employ a horse, a donkey, a mule, a beast or a goat. Herbivores have inherent problems for people wanting to use them as beasts of burden, they need a lot of feed and they produce a lot of waste. Dog however can pull large loads and eat scraps so were ideal for the impoverished masses and had the added bonus of protecting the load when their master was otherwise occupied.

Dogs have a natural inherant opposition reflex..that is they pull when on a harness or push back when you try to force them to sit. This is what makes dogs great or terrible pullers it is really just the humans point of view if they see it as a good or a bad behaviour.

As with many of my training techniques, i try to change a poor behaviour into a paw behaviour which is just harnessing the things you do not like your dog doing.

So if your dog is a puller why not get him to get pulling!

First of all it is important to get a 10/10 recall this can be achieved in the home to start with by calling and rewarding your dog as soon as he turns back to you. You can improve the dogs excitement by running backwards a few steps and vocalising your excitement, then rewarding as soon as your dog gets to you. Then start upping the anti by working on a lead and introducing some distractions. Once your dog turns back to you all the time you are ready to teach your dog to pull...or rather teach him to pull on request.

Harness up your dog with a well fitting harness, even your car harness will do. Use tidbits (small treats) to associate the harness with good things.

Then attach your lead to the harness and let him pull. Every now and again call him back and reward.

Soon enough you will be ready to attach the lead to your belt and his harness and hey presto your dog is pulling you so you can run much further and tire him out quicker...

 ...that's a paw behaviour!