DOGS TODAY October 2003
Peter Neville's
TRUE CASE HISTORIES
 
When it comes to canine behaviour and training problems, the most common is pulling on the lead!

Despite all the aggression problems, separation-related disorders, and phobias and nervousness difficulties that fill a behaviourist’s day, it’s pulling and lead control that vexes most owners, it seems
You’d think that pulling would be simple enough for owners to treat and that a behaviour referral wouldn’t be necessary. That is until, as a dog owner, you actually try to stop a dog from getting wherever he wants to go at top speed. He’ll pull your arm out of its socket and strangle himself until his eyes bulge!

Indeed, it used to be that not all behaviourists or trainers could offer too much in the way of a solution to this stressful practical problem, and, as a result, many dogs simply carried on strangling themselves all the way to the park.

Consequently, they got far fewer walks than they needed because it was just too much of an ordeal for their owners to take them out. Other dogs were cruelly treated using confrontation and abuse by some so-called ‘trainers’. It is surely a testament to the incompetence of man that so many barbaric implements have been — and sadly still are — used to tackle this common problem, from horrible choke chains and prong collars, to electric shock collars and even beating the poor dog into submission.
In among the huge number of enlightened trainers nowadays, there are still far too many people around who shame the name of their trade by still insisting that owners choke, strangle and punish their pets with chains and abuse in the interests of training them. I often wonder what it is that makes trainers, who presumably get involved with dogs because they love them, recommend such training methods. Maybe they don’t love dogs or their owners after all. Maybe they have some sinister reason for wanting to inflict pain and cruelty on dogs. Whatever it is, they clearly don’t know that the days of ‘being cruel to be kind’ are over. They are just being ‘cruel to be cruel’ and more and more owners, even inexperienced ones, are realising that this is no way to teach a child, school a horse, or train a dog in the modern world. Today, more and more people are looking for a trainer who is ‘kind, fair and effective’, a phrase that John Fisher coined nearly 10 years ago.
Prevention is better than cure
Of course, as every good trainer and behaviourist can tell you, it is far better to prevent a problem from developing in a young dog than having to treat it later in an adult. So it’s great that there are now so many puppy classes around that are placing a strong emphasis on teaching puppies to walk in a relaxed manner on the lead using happy, positive reinforcement — initially just for walking on a loose lead next to their owner. The puppy never expects to walk in any other way, because it’s simply more fun to walk where the rewards appear.
Many classes sensibly teach dogs, in the safety of a training room, to learn to walk next to their owners without a lead attached at all, so that putting a lead on makes no difference to where they walk later. This can all be done with a little patience, a clicker, a bag of treats, and a light, encouraging attitude, rather than with the frightening, bullying approach of times past.
But, for owners of dogs who either missed out on going to puppy classes or didn’t find themselves at a class using modern, effective training approaches, the problem of a pulling dog often never gets resolved. And as the dog gets bigger, so does the scale of the problem.
This was how I found Zinger, a wonderfully and typically exuberant Springer. Kim was on the end of the lead, struggling to hold on, at the clinic of my associate, behaviourist Jo Scott, in Verwood, Dorset. Poor Kim was wondering how it was that her fluffy, affectionate, happy little puppy had become so strong so quickly and was now pulling her along so badly. She was just as concerned that her normally attentive dog seemed to ignore all her attempts to get his attention as soon as the lead went on. Why did that wretched lead turn Zinger into a pulling, panting, deaf tractor? Kim was hoping that Jo and I might be able to help.
One thing was for sure, ignoring Zinger would not be allowed. He pulled towards me, and leapt madly all over me, bottom wagging in the sort of friendly greeting that only a mad, high-energy; loveable Springer can give you! We had to calm things down and analyse what had been going on and what Kim had tried to do to teach Zinger how to restrain himself. ‘Restrain and retrain’ is a good motto for this one, I thought, as Zinger did his best to make sure that the attention stayed on him during our chat.
Cause and effect
As every training book will tell you, dogs pull on the lead for different reasons: enthusiasm to get to the park, following a scent on the ground, wanting to lead their owner into new places, insecurity and wanting to get to known places of safety as fast as possible... Some pull simply because they have something to pull against —pressure on the collar invites counterpressure, and the whole thing descends into a battle of strength, for no other reason than the dog is on a lead in the first place.
Some of these dogs walk calmly and happily by their owners’ side if they are not on a lead, but there are some places where a lead cannot be avoided (for legal or safety reasons), and this is when the trouble starts!
Some dogs start to pull when they want to meet other dogs. If restrained, they can become frustrated; if frustrated, they can start to get angry, especially as they become more competitive when they start to grow up. Then we can have an aggressive, excitable dog to treat, simply because he was never socialised properly or taught to walk calmly on a lead.
With Zinger I felt that he just wanted to be somewhere else all the time -because everywhere, everybody and every dog were just sooooooooooo interesting and he wanted to get to know everything as fast as possible about his surroundings. The pressure of the lead on his collar was preventing him from going at his own pace, so he had clearly resolved to battle against it until it snapped and he would then be free to live life at a proper Springer pace!
Clearly, he had no concept of how he might be extending his loving owner’s arms, and he couldn’t even hear her requests and pleas to slow down and calm down. He was too occupied trying to be someplace else! Being a Springer, he was impervious to being shouted at and couldn’t be lured with treats; he just wanted to be free to do what he wanted, even though he didn’t know what it was exactly!
Help needed
A good trainer keeps a pack of ideas, techniques and equipment for teaching lead-training, from which the most appropriate method is selected. But that’s only once the owner has gone to a good trainer for help! Many owners never make it that far. Some simply endure the problem, hang on for grim death, or just get rid of the dog, often only to repeat all of the problems with their next pet, of course.
Kim was of the ‘endure and hang on for grim death’ types with Zinger, who, being one of those well-sprung but lightweight models of Springer, could just about be hung on to, at least when he was younger. But, by the time I met them, it was getting increasingly uncomfortable for both of them.
Kim worked shift patterns and didn’t have time to regularly attend training classes with Zinger, and he was getting stronger, probably as a result of all his pulling exercise. We guessed that he would only get stronger and stronger and ever better at pulling!
Jo and I decided that our first recommendation to Kim would be to fit a Gentle Leader headcollar to Zinger without delay, simply to bring him under more effective physical control and to make lead-walking calmer and less of a chore. Fitted and introduced carefully, I had every faith that the Gentle Leader would fulfil its function and make life a lot easier. It would hopefully also enable Kim to start to communicate much better with her excitable dog. Then, she could retrain him to walk by her side, as well as restrain him.
As if by magic...
What we got when we fitted the Gentle Leader to Zinger was one of those occasional instant total transformations that happens with some dogs when they feel its effects. He simply stopped pulling on the lead and calmed down! He sat or stood and remained attentive to Kim and alert to all that was going on around him. He didn’t try to get anywhere unless she led him, at which point he just trotted along beside her as if he had never pulled in his life! 
Now; I would be the first to say that this was rather unusual, as most dogs take a few minutes to get used to wearing the Gentle Leader, and some try to paw it off their face for a while before they settle down. In fact, I always make a point of advising owners to expect some protest; it is often the case that the more a dog struggles initially, the better he accepts it in the end. But Zinger, bless him, seemed to treat wearing the Gentle Leader as just another thing in life’s range of experiences. Now, he was viewing life differently and with Kim, rather than in spite of her.
Needless to say, Kim was delighted that her dog was no longer panting and struggling, and she stayed for the training class with Jo and several other dogs, including a well-behaved Labrador friend, who Zinger had often played with in very high spirits. Now, the two of them happily lined up to do their sit-stays and all the other stuff, with not a single thought of being disruptive.
They kept all that nicely for the off-lead and off-Gentle Leader run about at the end of class! 
How does it work?
It had all seemed so easy almost embarrassingly so. Jo and I wondered, as we often do, which madman it was that first expected dogs to be walked and trained with a neckcollar, rather than with a headcollar when it works so well with many other strong animals! Whoever it was sure made life difficult ever since for just about every dog trainer and owner! 
So just how and why did the Gentle Leader work for Zinger? As ever, it seemed to be down to its combination three-fold effect:
By virtue of the nose-loop encircling his muzzle, the Gentle Leader controlled and steered Zinger’s head in the same way as any other headcollar does with horses, bulls, goats, camels etc. This gives a far better degree of control, and requires virtually no force, compared with attempting to lead, walk or train a dog via a leash and neckcollar.
Some dogs, like Zinger just seem to sense that they are now being directed and cannot pull when wearing a headcollar and so they immediately stop trying. For others, there is simply no longer anything to pull against, compared with struggling against a neckcollar or choke chain and so the concept of pressure inviting counterpressure is negated.
To be fair, most dogs take a little while to get used to the sensation of wearing something on their face, and to relinquishing their ability to pull along. But it is usually only a question of a few moments, and the acceptance process can be speeded up with a positive rewarding attitude and associating wearing the headcollar with the prospect of getting treats.
The pressure around the muzzle caused by the adjusted snug fit of the nose-loop of the headcollar also probably had a natural canine psychological effect on Zinger, as it does on most dogs who wear one. It causes a typical relaxation response in the same way as when wolves and dogs may gently grasp the muzzle of younger packmates, or when subordinates present their muzzle to be held by an older or parent figure in the pack. The nose-loop is also believed to impact on acupressure points on a dog’s face, stimulating a natural relaxation response.
The special double D-ring of the Gentle Leader, positioned carefully above Zinger’s Adam’s apple, painlessly transferred some of the tension to the back of his neck when he tried to pull on the lead. This stimulated a second natural relaxation response, one that begins in puppyhood — a puppy relaxes automatically if his mother (or a person) picks him up by the scruff of the neck so that he may be carried quickly and efficiently without any struggle, perhaps away from danger. This innate response continues to some degree in most adult dogs, as it did with Zinger, and further helped to calm him down.
With these natural effects often achievable simply by fitting the Gentle Leader, it is no surprise that an unruly or pulling dog often self-corrects on the lead, and becomes calm and easy to lead within minutes (or in this case, seconds) of wearing it. The Gentle Leader is the only headcollar for dogs to have been granted, and be protected by, a patent in the USA, Europe and elsewhere; the terms of the patent recognising these design and function attributes that are specific to dog behaviour.
As Zinger showed, training then becomes a far less daunting prospect as the dog is calmer and the owner is better able to communicate with, and motivate, their dog. The Gentle Leader is also very useful in treating more specific behaviour problems, such as aggression towards other dogs.
Largely as a result of being included in the world’s top 100 inventions selected by the prestigious Smithsonian Institute in the USA, the Gentle Leader was recently featured in the New York Times, a publication not noted for frivolous reporting. Direct sales by the manufacturers in the month following exceeded 10,000 as a result of this one article!
Award-winning
The Gentle Leader’s astonishing impact on dogs like Zinger has caught the attention not only of the world’s top vets and trainers, but also the scientific community! It has just been included in the world’s top 100 inventions selected by the prestigious Smithsonian Institute in the USA, and so it is now independently seen as one of the most useful of consumer products ever made! It is listed alongside the Hoover, Velcro and all those other marvelous inventions that make modem life easier — not bad for an item invented specifically for dogs and their owners.
Largely as a result of this, the Gentle Leader was recently featured in the New York Times, a publication certainly not noted for frivolous reporting. Quite apart from the impact through trainers and pet shops, direct sales by the manufacturers in the month following exceeded 10,000 as a result of this one article!
Sales in the USA alone have now gone well past a staggering one million, with huge numbers also sold in the UK, the rest of Europe, Australia and Japan. The inventors, Veterinary Professor Emeritus Bob Anderson and Ruth Foster a former head of the National Association of Obedience Instructors of the USA, were honoured by a special presentation and reception to commemorate their invention last autumn in the USA.
Their idea has resulted in an awful lot of contented dogs and delighted owners around the world, and also an enormous number of satisfied trainers, behaviourists and veterinarians, who now recommend the Gentle Leader simply because it makes their jobs so much easier in so many cases.
Seeking help
For owners seeking help with the behaviour and training of their puppies and dogs, a Gentle Leader trainers’ list has been established, initially for the UK and Ireland, though it is now being extended to cover other European countries.
In the UK, the list provides a national, county-by-county access to training instructors who are familiar with fitting and training dogs and puppies with the Gentle Leader. Their details are posted on the Gentle Leader website, www.gentleleader.co.uk. Dog owners can therefore quickly locate their nearest available trainer for help both with fitting and using the Gentle Leader, and all aspects of dog training and puppy classes.