I remember trying to teach my first dog to walk nicely on lead. I had watched some YouTube videos on dog training before I brought puppy home and optimistically started right away. It had looked easy enough on the video but after graduating from my living room to the outside world, something wasn’t quite working. I went back and watched again, found different methods. Friends, dog trainers and the internet all had different ideas. There must have been a hundred options.  

I went out every single day and walked up and down my street, and round in circles at a local park, but nothing seemed to work. I trained for hours and hours and didn’t see any results. One piece of advice and then the next,  following “The Method That Really Works”. I can’t remember how many times I heard “ Well it worked for my dog”. I thought either I was doing something wrong, or my dog was defective.

I couldn’t even get my dog’s attention. I was tired and stressed and felt frustrated and hopeless.  I even considered using methods I disagree with ethically and morally because I needed this dog to stop pulling me down the street.

I didn’t have anyone to turn to for advice that didn’t just add to my list of things that didn’t work. You wouldn’t believe how many times I got home from a walk and cried because my dog pulled on lead.