Shock Value

I've been having a hard time walking with Wheatie for a week or so now. At first, I was trying to hold the leash so that he'd be at least next to me or a few steps behind me, but he was pulling so much that I pretty much gave up and let him pull from the front. This was a mistake (of course) because he'd be eating everything that he saw in front of him and would often pick up leaves or flowers. I decided to switch back to how I was originally holding the leash where he would need to be on my side. He didn't like that at all and would pull nearly the whole walk. My hands would hurt afterward because of having to hold on to the leash.

I knew that I needed to get him a new collar or something else to train him to walk better. I asked my dad if he had any of Shin or Aki's old collars. He ended up giving me a bunch of harnesses and an old chain collar that one of them used to wear. Last night, BFC and I decided to try the chain collar to see how Wheatie would react to it. Let me tell you, that was the BEST thing that we decided to do since he was great on the entire walk. At first, he was a little shocked about how he couldn't pull as hard as he could with the regular collar, but he got used to it and was able to walk at a nice pace with us.

I told BFC that Wheatie walks way better with him than he does with me, but BFC said that Wheatie actually walks better with me because he'll actually follow me. Apparently Wheatie plops himself down when BFC tries to walk him. I have yet to see that, but I told BFC that if the chain collar doesn't work after a while, he could try using one of the harnesses Dad gave us instead.