Why You Might Need to Lengthen Your Dog's Lead

Lengthen the lead might resolve a few problems!

Have you been struggling with your dog's lead manners? Is their pulling too much for you? The solution may be more simple than what you think. It may be more down to the lengthen of the lead rather than them refusing to heel. If your dog is steam rolling ahead and you want them to relax on the lead, this can lead to frustration on both sides - your dog is screaming for freedom and you are craving respect. Dogs who feel that they lack freedom will do everything in their power to make it work for them, normally this looks like lead chewing to pulling you all over the place. We recommend trying to find the right lead first. It's common in our industry for a dog's lead to be the length of the dog and potentially an inch more, however, we don't advise this length as it can quickly become too short (particularly in single track narrow country lanes). You're probably thinking, "well the dog should be at my heel or behind me" but some dogs naturally will request to walk ahead of the pack - mostly as it offers them purpose and comfort. Please note, this is not a bad thing if your dog responds to you at quick notice and they regularly check in (however this is a story on it's own!). Looking for the correct length? We recommend ditching the extendable lead as there's not much control, especally if your dog has a reactive disposition. Why? It's clunky in your hands, the latch is unreliable and the lead strengthen never feels truly secure. We actually recommend joining two standard leads together to begin with to test what length works for your dog - at heel and at relaxed sniff walk - before having to buy and trial test loads of leads. You can also pick up on the type of lead you would also like to hold, take note of what's a comfortable hand placement and what type of lead helps you feel secure in situations.

You will notice with by lengthen the lead, the pulling will reduce to a level where you can start working on lead manners as you have ticked "suitable freedom levels", so now you can focus teaching the dog to learn boundaries and how far they stretch the lead.

If you are client and want some advice, give us a shout and we can trialling it in our next dog walk.

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