Royal’s response to #HarnesstheLove

Royal here! Once again giving you the scoop from the dog’s perspective. This week, Jenn blogged about #HarnesstheLove, a campaign to promote the use of no-pull body harnesses. Bravo! This is a great way to get more dogs into no-pull harnesses and out of prong, choke and shock collars.  I can tell you, if your dog had a choice in the matter, they would tell you to stop using that thing that hurts. There’s a better way.

I’ll clue you in here. Those nasty prong, choke and shock collars seem to “work” because they hurt! Dogs will avoid pain, but the pain itself can create other problems. You see, we dogs are associative learners. So we will associate pain with whatever is around when we experience it. So, if your dog pulls to get closer to another dog and you correct them with spikes in the neck or a shock (OUCH!) it means that other dogs are bad. Or people, Or bikes. Or children. That only needs to happen once for an association to be created. It’s so easy for things to go horribly wrong. At the very least, you haven’t really taught your dog what you DO want them to do. So when the nasty collar comes off, we go back to pulling, etc.

For so many reasons, no-pull body harnesses are the better choice. Here’s Jenn putting my Halti Harness on. Basically, you put it on your dog and it gives you more control of their body, makes walking us so much easier, and causes no pain or injury to your dog’s neck. What’s not to like?

Jenn’s been using a no-pull harness on me since I was a wee pup. I never really learned that pulling got me anywhere, but the harness continues to make all the fun stuff that we do together easier. So this week, #HarnesstheLove! Show your dog you love them by choosing a no-pull harness.