It may seem like just a bad behavior, but leash biting is often a symptom of a dog being frustrated or not fully understanding leash walking. It's especially common amongst young, playful, and excitable dogs, but with training, it can be prevented or eliminated.
When your dog is excited, the leash becomes a portable tug toy of sorts. High-energy, playful dogs with a difficult time soothing themselves when overwhelmed are most likely to exhibit this behavior, but it can become an ingrained habit in any dog.
Contrary to popular belief, your dog pulling when walking is not a way of exhibiting dominance. Rather, the reason they do this is quite simple. They are excited, so excited in fact that they don't want their walk to end and so they keep moving forward.
Stop immediately and don't move until your pup lets up and there is slack in the leash. You may have to stop again three seconds later and do the same thing and that's okay. Just be consistent about refusing to let them pull. When they pull, turn and head in the other direction.
Why do dogs pull on the leash? Dogs pull to get where they are going. Dogs want to engage with the environment, and humans, to a dog, can be slow. Wearing a leash and being tethered to a human is not a “natural” behavior for dogs.
If at any time your dog reacts negatively, simply turn around and walk away from the situation until he calms down enough to play again or accept food. If your dog is reacting negatively, you have decreased the distance too quickly. Move the helper dog back to a distance where your dog can relax and repeat the process.
Use the tug toy and use stopping to tug while walking before your dog begins biting the leash. This serves as a reward for walking without biting the leash and gives your dog an alternate behavior to do that can channel that drive to tug in a productive way.
You can absolutely leash train an older dog. The process may take a little bit longer since you'll likely be undoing some bad leash manners your pup probably picked up along the way, but leash training an older dog just takes a bit more patience.
Puppies pull on the lead because they want to walk faster or go in a different direction to us. Since it is usually impossible to allow them to go where they want to go or keep up with them, we need to teach them to walk with us at our pace and not to pull on the lead.
Practice giving them space on walks
Practice walking off the path and asking your dog to “wait” when no one is approaching. This practice will make it easier for your dog to remember what to do when they are feeling anxious. You want to be able to get your dog's attention regardless of what's going on around you.
Turn to Treats to Distract. In the meantime, start decreasing your dog's frustration when he's on leash and spies another dog by removing the tension from your leash. To do that, you're going to teach your dog that when he sees another dog, he'll be rewarded for looking at you.
Leash aggression, also known as leash reactivity, is an undesirable behavioral problem in dogs that causes aggressive, excitable behavior in leashed dogs, including barking, lunging, growling, snarling, pulling and jumping.
Yanking on a leash can give your dog whiplash; it's never a good idea to jerk any type of animal's neck quickly. Oftentimes, dogs don't understand why their leash jerks their neck, so they become frustrated, depressed or aggressive. The best way to prevent neck, nerve and thyroid damage is to get your dog a harness.
Harnesses bring fewer health risks
In general, harnesses are easier on dogs than collars. For example, a good harness can alleviate back pain. They're also far less likely to pull on your dog's throat, causing injury. If you have a dog that loves to pull hard while walking, you'll want to consider a harness.
Reactive behaviors usually crop up in adolescence around 6 to 18 months of age and tend to get worse as the dog reaches social maturity around 2 or 3 years of age. Your pup will not “grow out of” this behavior.
In addition, you will have to take steps to prevent him from pulling in the first place. If he's a puppy he should be keen to please. This means you could see results in just a week or so. However, if he has years of pulling under his collar, then you may need a couple of months before training proves successful.
Place something on the floor that your dog would really like to get to, such as a toy. If your dog pulls on the lead to get towards the toy, stop and call them towards you. Their reward for walking on a loose lead is getting to the toy. This way, the dog learns that pulling just slows things down.
They should learn stay on leash and then progress to long-leash and off-leash recall at 4 to 12 months. By 6 months old your puppy should reliably respond to come on leash and long leash. By 12 months your puppy should respond to come in any on- or off-leash situation.
If your dog begins to pull on the leash, stop immediately and get your dog's attention. Ask her to sit, then put your treat hand back in front of her nose and start walking again. Practice daily for at least a week, then stop luring your dog with treats in your hand.