Dog lead length and pulling on the lead.

One of the biggest frustrations for the dog owners that I meet is that their dog pulls on the lead. There’s lots of reasons why our dogs pull, but we can make matters worse by using a lead that is too short (it’s not quite that simple, but a longer lead can make life easier).

Alot of the puppy and dog leads we see are around 1.2m long (about 4ft in old money). If we use such a short lead we are almost teaching our puppies to pull as they try to explore the world. At 1.2m they don’t have to move very far at all from our heel before there is tension in the lead. Our puppies and dogs love to explore the world around them, it is their walk after all, so why would we ask them to be super glued to our side all the time?

Something as simple as switching to a 2m lead (just over 6ft in old money), or even longer, can make for a much more satisfactory walk for everyone. Your dog, or puppy, can wander over to a sniff, and even if you take a couple of steps before you realise they have stopped, there is enough slack in the lead that they aren’t dragging you with them.

“But Kate, what about when we are at the side of a road, I don’t want my puppy going off the pavement”. There will be times when we need our puppy or dog to walk a little closer, such as at the side of the road or around town, this is why I love a training lead.

A training lead is one you can make into multiple lengths, as it has a clip at either end, and various rings down it’s length meaning we can lengthen or shorten it as we need to. There are a couple of benefits to this. It makes teaching loose lead walking (or heel) easier, as we can use the way we attach the leads as a cue. I prefer to use a harness for walking my dogs, and teach two modes of walking:

Loose lead walking, this is where I like them to be a little closer, so I hook one clip to the back of their harness and the other to the front (or their collar if they don’t have a ring on the front). *They do need lots of practice, and training to walk on a loose lead, sadly no piece of equipment is a miracle cure for pulling.

Leisure walking – This is where it’s a little safer, maybe off road. In this instance I only hook on the back of their harness so they have more freedom to go and sniff. (Caveat – they still aren’t allowed to drag me around when they are in leisure mode, again we need to teach them the limits of their lead through positive reinforcement).

Longer leads are also really important for helping our reactive dogs, if they are anxious they may ‘react’ to other dogs as they feel confined by a short lead, a longer lead gives them a sense of freedom, and means they can move away if they feel they need to, it also helps mitigate what we do at our end of the lead (usually tightening it when we spot a dog!).

If you use a short lead at the moment give a longer one a try and see how you get on.