Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Dog harnesses.

Walking my dogs often as I generally do, I run into lots of millennials in the parks with their “furbabies” that they are using as a substitute for children. Often times non-descript pound mutts.

Almost every one of them are getting pulled all over because they all have their dogs in a harness, not using the collar. Of course dogs love to pull with a harness so it’s not like they’re gonna ever stop.

I can only assume walking em on a collar is considered cruel nowadays, same thing with asserting your dominance over the dog.

Taken notice of the same.

Dogs need discipline just like children.

A properly trained dog needs neither collar, nor leash in public. Just a snap of the fingers and a point. Sometimes we used a collar early (cheating) to get to that point.

On the other hand, there is no better, more effective, or faster cheat than a tiny buzz from a shock collar to teach a new puppy to kennel. Nor anything better than kennel training to achieve a house broke puppy.

Many of the designer breeds out there aren't particularly trainable. They've bred the brains out of them. Our daughter has 2 Goldendoodles, the small ones bred from toy poodles. They have to be the dumbest dogs I've ever seen. The larger ones bred from standard poodles are supposed to be smarter but I've never dealt with those.

It's not the harness that's the trouble, it's the attitude to refer to an animal as a "fur baby" that is the problem.

we could never keep a collar on our beagle. tighten that thing down until as tight as i dared and he would still get out of it. he got out of the harness too. i think the little fugger had some houdini in him. plus he seem to have an inordinate amount of neck rolls. looked like he was wearing a turtle neck sweater.

My young Lab is the opposite of what you describe: pulls hard on a collar, great on a harness. The trick to a harness is to have the leash hookup on the chest, not on top of the shoulders.

Buy a harness with the leash loop on the front of the dogs chest. When the dog tries to pull it just walks him in a circle.

You beat me to it.

Nailed it!

We are using a harness with our pup without issue. The leash connects on top.

And you both beat me.

My wife got one with a yoke type attachment, two ends on the lead. One goes in front of the chest, the other to the shoulders. If the puppy walks correctly there's no pressure on the front one. Let him start trying to be the boss, and it spins him around.

Little fugger will just choke himself on the regular collar some days, then back in the harness for a few. He's a lot better now than he was.

And for those who say just train them off leash. It works well with certain breeds, not so well with a sighthound. Even ones with obedience titles. Little furry critters flip a switch, no more hearing input to the brain. And they only see the "bunny" moving.

This^^^^^^

Our obedience training was very successful with our stock dogs.

Admittedly a Jack Russel Terrier is a different matter.

What I did with my heelers is bring em everywhere and have them off the leash as much as possible where I could. That way being off-leash wasn’t a novelty and, being heelers, once they understood I wanted them to stick close, that’s what they did.

+1 (actually, it’s a ‘roading harness’) all I’ve ever used on the beagle.

I only walk my German Shepherds with a Herm Sprenger Ultra-Plus Training Dog Prong Collar.

I absolutely cannot stand people at the park who let their dogs off-leash. Particularly the ones who think it's cute their "fur baby" runs up to and barks in the face of my 92lb German Shepherd.

Yeah, your dog listens, right 'til they don't. They don't realize their "fur babies" are within seconds of becoming scooby snacks.


https://www.chewy.com/herm-sprenger...LfgQ4maTMdnmPQ2CGLcr-4spveEaArAFEALw_wcB

Guess I’ve been wrong about harnesses, tho I usually see’em attached to the leash from the top.

Doesn't matter if they ware a harness or a leash. All dogs need at least basic training.

Walking my goofball isn't going to do anything for her. During the summer she runs along side me on bike rides, when the weather gets cold we change our routine. I take her out with a 50' long lead attached to her harness and a 18" short lead hooked to her collar. The short lead is wrapped around a belt grip on the harness so it doesn't hang off of her side. People laugh at our routine. I walk, goofball starts in the heel position and takes off running in front of me. When she gets to the end of the rope she'll circle back, run past me on my right side and keep going until she's at the end of the rope again. She'll circle back from behind me, run up to me on my left side and repeat the cycle while I continue walking down the street. She's been trained to stay in the road and off of people's lawns. She's also been trained to sit, lay down or stop/stand in motion. If I see a car coming or a person walking/jogging towards us I'll have her sit on command, walk up to her and grab the short lead and wait with her until the road is clear. Once in a while she'll get distracted and hit the end of the rope running. With the harness she'll come to an abrupt stop and look around like WTF, if the rope were attached to her collar the sudden stop would damage her throat. GSPs are nuts...