Loose Leash Walking 2 dogs
So Portia can loose leash walk fine, she was always good even when she was a puppy. Ninja on the other hand is a puller! He pulls and pulls. I have a hard time trying to correct him when I am walking both dogs. It seems as though Ninja always wants to be in front of Portia and they fight to be in front of eachother. It doesn't help that they BOTH have to walk on my RIGHT. They will not walk on my LEFT.
So for all the multiple dog owners out there, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated 
P.S
Ninja isn't pulling super hard, but he is always in front of me, which makes Portia go in front of me, so they are both in front of me when we walk and that's not good for the "pack leader" to be the follower right?
Comments
Moto won't walk by my side for anything. That is with an easy walk harness. He won't pull. But he needs to be on watch. I have talked to trainers. We have worked with him over and over again. Piglet stays right by my side.
I am interested to hear if anyone has a suggestion I haven't tried.
I used to try and keep Nemo by my side, but he doesn't like to. So instead he walks in front of me (and sometimes behind, and on the right or left), but luckily he does not pull.
Ninja is still young, I'd suggest the Gentle Leader harness, or possibly the head one if he will tolerate it.
I walk one dog on each side with a prong collar. However, now that Mika is older, I've started to use the gentle leader and that is working much better than the prong.
When Mika was a adolescent, we tried the gentle leader, but she walked from side to side (A.D.D Dog) instead of forward. The side to side action was too difficult to control with the gentle leader.
With either collar they are usually at my side. Tho, at times, they fall behind because of their attempts to get rid of the gentle leader.
I trained Lucy to not walk in front of me with a combination of a few things. She gets it completely now and I don't even hold her leash anymore, I just tie it around my waist. This approach usually works when we have another dog visiting as well. I start off with both dogs on their normal leash and collar. I give leash corrections whenever they get in front of me. Generally, they start ignoring those corrections pretty quickly, so I go to step two wich almost always works immediately. Whenever they get in front of me I use the outside of my foot to touch their rump. If your dogs are anything like Lucy and her friends, they won't much like being touched near their rear and will jump to the side to avoid being touched again. Just as they jump to the side, I give a gentle tug on the leash to bring them back into position next to me. Nine times out of ten that will work after the second or third try and they'll stop tugging (at least for a while). If they continue to ignore the butt tap, then I will take the loop end of the leash and make a mini choke collar out of it. Note, I keep the clip end of the leash attached to the collar as well. I put the loop at the very top of their neck. If they respond well to that, I'll slowly start moving more of the slack from the clip end to the choke end. After a few minutes its as if I'm just walking them with the normal leash and collar again.
I hope this helps!
I haven't tried the butt thing.
I had Moto going pretty well for a while, but when we got Piglet Jason took the small dog. And while he is amazing at so many things. Discipline is not his strong suit. We call it gentle giant syndrome. He is so aware of his big-ness that he is afraid of scaring him. I'm the big meanie who makes the dogs sit before they get to do anything.
We'll have to try a bit of butt tapping see if that gets the little man in line.
I tried the turning technique on Tojo and I just ended up going in circles until he got bored and just sat down and wouldn't walk anymore. I gave up on trying to get him to walk at my side, although I did make a nylon slip collar which kept him from pulling. He doesn't pull anymore and that's what was annoying me. For the short period where I lived in my apartment and had two dogs (Tojo and Loki) I didn't do anything special other than not letting either of them pull on the leash. They didn't stay in my kind of formation, but they managed not to get tangled very often. Now I mostly walk them off-leash (or with just Rakka on leash, depending on the whereabouts of a certain llama). Anyway, sorry, I'm not much help.
That butt trick sounds pretty good... maybe I'll try that.
My trainer told me to stop when they start pulling and then when they stop, say "ok" and continue walking. I tried that but we were stopping like every 5 steps and our walks didn't really seem like walks, more like sit and go. Ill have to try the butt thing too. Sounds interesting! haha. Ill probably have to invest in a gentle leader harness. Right now Portia and Ninja just have Nylon Neck Collars. I tried putting a harness on Portia when she was a pup and she would not move with it on!
Wow, I didn't realize the butt touch wasn't that popular. I have to warn you, the butt touch works well after some practice. Lucy picked it up to the point where I don't have to remind her very often, but it took her a few weeks/months to get to that point. When we first started, I had to do the butt touch two or three times on two or three separate occasions on our longer walks. Also, it takes a little practice on your part to keep your balance and keep moving forward when you do it. Lucy got to a point where she could detect my weight shift and would jump out of the way before I could touch her butt. Of course that has the desired effect anyway!
Keep us posted on how it goes, I'll be curious to see if it works for others.
Don't let MommyofNiko convince you all that she walks the dogs. She should be saying when The Chad walks the dogs, Niko doesn't like the canny collar. Also when The Chad walks the dogs they pull, but not as much when they wear the Canny Collar. What's funny is Niko is so distracted when she walks wearing the collar she lifts her front paws up towards her nose to remove the collar everytime she steps. I also have to give her credit the last time we walked with the Collar's. We were half way through our voyage when she became very interested in someones bushes by their mailbox. Me in all thinking to let her be and investigate the area, I came to the conclusion it was a sabotage.
1 point Niko; Chad points 0
Romi - our trainer taught us the same quick turns in a different direction to correct pulling. It's very tedious...and you will have to correct ninja every 30 seconds or so at first. And if he doesn't respond to the nylon collar...you will need to get a harness or something that he will respond to. Otherwise, it won't work. Our trainer also told us that until Kiba can walk straight without pulling, that we should walk shinobi and kiba separately. It's harder with 2 dogs b/c there is more distraction. It's prolly really difficult to walk both dogs by yourself when they are pulling. So maybe you should try separating them so that ninja knows he is being corrected. Or for a while, walk with john so each of you have one dog.
i feel you on the walking though...it's hard...and takes a lot of patience and weird turning...
Dave - thanks for the tip on the butt touch technique though...i'm gonna try that today!
good luck!
LOL, chad i think your in trouble when your woman doesn't even vote for you! Niko - 6, Chad - 1 lol...86% to 14%!!
Oh come on DAVE and BRAD, I thought I would have gotten your support.