Dogs that pull at the leash

Walking big dogs can be hazardous if they are "tuggers".  The problem is particularly bad in the winter.  Ice and dogs that yank are a recipe for disaster.

Hercules, the oldest German Shepherd, is a yanker.

Image from HERE

I went on line to see what kinds of training aids were suggested.  This one seemed to be pretty popular.  I just choked when I saw that they wanted $35 for a bent up piece of wire.

I am sure I over-paid.  $6 worth of hardware from the local farm supply store and $11 worth of rope.  I chose poly rope because it is hard and slippery.

Both Herc and Zeus are 33" through the chest.  The bailing twine is to tether the carabiner to prevent it from getting away.

The plan is to clip the carabiner attached to the O-ring Herc's collar.

Run the yellow rope beneath his chest and clip the second carabiner, the tethered one, to the O-ring.  And then snap the regular leash to the loop at the end of the harness.

One thing about the yellow poly rope is that it does not want to hold knots.  The rope is slippery and stiff, it wants to relax out of the knot.

This is an anchor hitch.  One way to "fix" a knot in poly rope is to warm up the end enough to fuse it to an earlier loop.  You just don't want to fuse it to the strand coming into the knot or you will weaken the rope and make early failure more likely.

  If all goes well, there will be a follow-up report and some pictures.

Follow-up

Here is where we ended up:

A simple rope with a loop tied in each end.  One end is slid beneath the collar, the rope is passed around his chest immediately behind his legs.  Then, the free end of the rope is passed back through the loop  that was passed beneath his collar.  The leash is then clipped to the loop on the free end.  Total cost...about 48" of cheap, poly rope.

No carabiners or metal O-rings.  Just rope.