Your Dog Is Dragging You Down the Street. Here's What's Actually Going On.

Walks should be the best part of your dog's day.

For a lot of dog owners in Salt Lake City, they're not. They're a negotiation. A battle of wills. A white-knuckle grip on the leash while the dog surges toward every squirrel, jogger, and interesting smell within range.

If that's your walk, I want to tell you something: it's not a personality problem. It's a training gap. And it's completely fixable without a prong collar, without an e-collar, and without out-muscling a dog who is, in most cases, much more motivated than you are.

I've been helping dog owners in Salt Lake City fix leash pulling for 17 years. Here's what I know about it.

Why Dogs Pull in the First Place

Dogs pull because it works. That's the whole explanation.

The first time your dog surged toward something interesting and you followed, they learned something: pulling gets me where I want to go. That lesson has been reinforcing itself on every walk since. The leash has become a signal that means move forward fast, and your dog has become very good at responding to it.

This is not stubbornness. It's not dominance. It's not your dog testing you. It's simple operant conditioning, a behavior that has been reinforced consistently will continue. To change it, you don't need to punish the pulling. You need to make not pulling more rewarding than pulling is.

The Equipment Question

Before we talk about technique, let's talk about equipment, because this is where a lot of people get led astray.

Prong collars and e-collars suppress pulling through pain and discomfort. They can produce a dog who stops pulling because they're afraid of what happens when they do. That's not the same as a dog who walks nicely, and it comes with real costs to the relationship and to the dog's overall emotional state.

What I recommend: a properly fitted front-clip harness. Not a back-clip harness, which actually encourages pulling by giving the dog something to lean into. A front-clip harness redirects the dog toward you when they pull forward, which interrupts the behavior without pain and makes it easier to reward the position you actually want.

The harness is a tool, not a solution. The training is the solution.

The Technique: What to Actually Do

The goal of loose leash training is to teach your dog that the most rewarding place to be on a walk is right next to you, on a loose leash. Here's how to build that.

Start in a low-distraction environment. Your driveway. A quiet hallway. Not the Jordan River Parkway on a Saturday morning. The more distractions, the harder it is for your dog to make good choices, and right now you're teaching a brand new skill.

Walk. The moment your dog hits the end of the leash and applies pressure, stop. Completely. Don't pull back, don't correct, don't say anything. Just stop moving. Your dog's pulling is not going to get them anywhere.

Wait. When your dog backs up or turns toward you and the leash goes slack, mark it (yes) and take a few steps in the direction you were going. Reward generously for the loose leash. Then walk again.

This feels slow. It is slow at first. But every time you stop when the leash tightens and reward when it loosens, you're teaching the dog that a loose leash equals forward movement and rewards, and a tight leash equals nothing happens. That lesson compounds.

Practice for five to ten minutes at a time. Short sessions, multiple times a day, beat one long frustrated walk every time.

Adding Distractions

Once your dog is walking nicely in a low-distraction environment, you add difficulty gradually. Same neighborhood block, but at a busier time of day. A quieter section of the Millcreek trail before moving to the more trafficked areas. A parking lot before a park.

Every time you add a new level of distraction, expect some regression. That's not failure, it's learning. Drop back to a reward rate that sets your dog up to succeed in the new environment, and build from there.

One thing I tell every client: don't try to train leash manners in the middle of a walk that's already going badly. If your dog is already over threshold and pulling hard, you're managing the situation, not training. Genuine training happens when both you and your dog are calm enough to think.

When to Get Help

If your dog's leash pulling is accompanied by lunging, barking, or reactivity toward other dogs or people, that's a different conversation. Leash reactivity has a different root cause and a different solution, and trying to address it with the same loose leash protocol won't get you where you need to go.

For dogs with reactivity, I'd point you toward a behavior consultation rather than a group class. We need to understand what's driving the behavior before we can build a real plan.

For dogs who pull but aren't reactive, the Canine Etiquette Class covers loose leash walking in depth, in a group setting with real distractions, over six structured Saturday sessions in Millcreek. That's often exactly the right next step.

Register for the Canine Etiquette Class

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Walks don't have to be a battle. Let's make them something you both actually look forward to.

Sit. Stay. Love.

Mo Lynch Vashel, The Canine Life Coach