Walking, learning & seeking professional help - Part 1

While Tulpen has gone home, I still want to post about our work together and the lessons this great fella taught me!

 

 

Tulpen loves to get outside and experience the world around him. The struggle is that I don't think this sweet boy has ever walked on a leash or worn a harness.

 

Wearing a harness is important for all dogs but very important for Tuplen since he likely has a partially collapsed trachea. New Rattitude has had several dogs in foster care who have this and it's an example of why it's so important to always walk a dog in a harness vs. a collar.  Most often the trachea issue is a combination of small breed dogs having genetically weak trachea with the fact that terriers will pull until they choke themselves to death and not stop if a squirrel is involved.  Combine that with people who use leash popping or any kind of choke chain and partial collapse becomes inevitable.   Again more examples of why a harness is important.

 

Here's a great video talking About harnesses - by Turid Rugaas  Even if you already walk your dog in harness, watch this video as it has some great information.  There are tons of harnesses out there and it's important to find a harness that fits the dog.  So, step one was complete with finding Tulpen a harness.  We decided on the Coastal Control Ease Training Dog Harness and as you can see below it fits great.

 

Fits nice in the front and there are lots of ways to loosen and tighten the harness

 

Fits nicely on his back and what you can't see is that it doesn't dig into his arm pits.



and the harness has two points of contact for the leash!

  When walking, Tulpen pulls, zig zags and either has his nose to the ground sniffing or is on alert taking everything in around him.  I would describe him as a very busy boy on leash who has no awareness of the handler or the space in which we are walking.  Both are very common for a terrier new to walking on a leash.

 

In an early post you saw Tulpen wearing a single point of contact leash.  That was a training error on my part.  If we want to change behaviors we need to set the dog up for success and to do that Tulpen needed to be walking on a 2 point of contact least.  Here's a past post going into a lot of detail  on why to use a 2 point of contact leash 

All geared up

Stay tuned to read the learning process for both myself and Tulpen!