Dear Pulling: For starters, take your dogs on separate walks. You need to spend some time working with Mr. Enthusiasm alone to get a good training foundation before you try to walk him with the older dog, which at two years old is really just leaving puppy hood.

I’m not sure exactly what a “pokey” collar is. I hope it is not a prong collar, which can give quite a sever correction if used incorrectly. Perhaps, it might be a martingale collar, which acts as a choke collar to a point but then applies pressure like a buckle collar. You might also want to try a body harness and take away the dog’s ability to pull down on his neck.

Combination Of Tack

I’ve had great success with using both a martingale collar and a harness to train my dog not to pull. In the beginning, I use just a 6-foot leather leash on the collar and train her to pay attention to me with a command like, “ready” and then a treat. All this is done at the heel position. Then as I get ready to walk, I’ll say “let’s go” and start the walk. It’s important not to let dog get in front of you where you can’t control him. If he should start to pass you give him a gentle tug flicking of the wrist on the leash and bring him back to the heel position and start the above all over again. Eventually, you will be able to bring him to your side and continue the walk rather than stopping.

After mastering collar walking, I switch to a retractable lead on the harness and use it for long lead walking, where the dog will be way out in front of me. The dog knows the difference when it comes to walking. But at this point in her training, she has learned to come back to my side with a quick flick on the leash. I’ve taught her that while on a short leash she needs to stay by side, but while on the long leash and harness she can venture out, but must come back when called, and having the leash on the harness let’s me reinforce this behavior each time. Eventually, when the young pup has learned the ropes you can bring the two dogs back together again.

Dear Lisa: A problem I have with both my Irish Setters is they will forage. They will eat anything, but particularly decaying matter such as wood from the wood pile, plant roots, or worse yet, mushrooms. Each one has eaten a mushroom which has resulted into a race to the emergency animal clinic. This is the season again for those mushrooms to come back. I’m very, very thorough to search the yard daily before letting them out to run, but even then, a mushroom can get by. I don’t want another $1,600 vet bill. How can I just get them to stop foraging? – Mushrooming Melee

Dear Mushrooming: Dogs are natural foragers. They glean so much information from their olfactory sense or “hound-dog nose” that they can’t help it. They are looking not only for tasty tidbits, but also for who has been around the backyard lately. Dogs want to know whether any intruders are a threat or should be hunted?

I’ve had mushroom issues in the past with my dogs too. It is hard to try and cull the ‘shrooms from the yard because it seems like they spring up every 24 hours. Really, the only way you can prevent them from eating these nasty, possibly toxic plants and fungi, is to keep them on a leash or fence off a portion of the yard.

Another option is to put a fence around the wood pile so they can’t get into it. Unless you are there to supervise your dogs during the time spent in the backyard, there isn’t much you can do to stop this natural behavior. Another tool you can employ is to teach your dog the “leave it” and “drop it” command. This will alter their natural behavior to forage but you have to be there to implement it. This way you can let your dogs loose in the yard and watch them. When they approach the dreaded item, a sharp “leave it” command from across the yard should do the trick every time.

 

Lisa Peterson, a long-time breeder of Norwegian Elkhounds, is the Director of Club Communications at the American Kennel Club. Contact her at ask@lisa-peterson.com or Dogma Publishing, P.O. Box 307, Newtown, CT 06470.