Halter Training Your Dog (Part 1)

One of the easiest training lessons you will ever encounter is halter training. Why is this? It is because your dog already knows the basics of how to function on a collar and leash system and walking is within their natural range of movement. Thus, you are not asking the dog to do anything outside of its normal field of activity. All you are doing is putting an extension on the collar and leash, which allows for more control of the animal.

So to begin the discussion, what is a halter? A halter in its simplest of forms is no more than an extended collar which has a secondary collar that encircles the animal’s upper torso just behind the front legs. There is a D-loop on the back for the attachment of a leash and the whole attachment usually buckles in the front. The halter is useful in stopping disagreeable behaviors and provides more control for the handler without wrenching the animal’s neck to achieve this goal.

To halter train your dog, you must first get your dog used to the apparatus. Let them explore it, sniff it and generally just look it over and become comfortable with it. This will put the dog at ease that this is not some new form of torture that you have devised and the dog will be more willing not to resist in the next step of training, which is placing the halter on the dog.

1 2 »