Halti Harness

At puppy school this morning our trainer recommended we get a halti harness as Dora can get very aroused (she is going through an easy to spook stage) and she can be very stubborn when you try to steer her away from things with a conventional collar/lead. It sounds as though with a halti harness I'll have control over her neck with one hand and her shoulders with the other hand so she will be easier to steer which will be helpful.
It should also help to teach her not to pull as she does pull on her lead though we have been working A LOT on this the last couple of weeks and our trainer had noticed a big improvement with her lead walking since last weeks class - hurrah!

I'm sure this question has come up before but I was just wondering if anyone has used a halti harness (not the muzzle head collar one) and whether they found it successful.

Not used one myself, but I can see how they'd help.

we use one on billy and it works

The halti harness system worked with Tyson. We used for about a month with 100% improvement with pulling and wandering attention. Personally would recommend. Be warned though, the unitiated will probably think your dog is muzzeled.....

We are thinking about trying one as well to keep Suki from eating everything she sees.

they work very well. personally i havent used one but my brother did with his dobey as it was a nightmare and he had instant success with it. His OH still uses it when she walks him as he is a bit of a big lad and it allows her more control over him

great, thanks for all the replies. I'm glad to hear some successful reports from peeps and doggies using the the halti harness.

I'll try and get one this week. Not sure whether to start using it straight away though or to wait to get some instruction from our trainer on Friday... Wouldn't want to get it wrong and ruin our chances of it working.

If you look at any of the Dog School pics of Jack on here, you'll see that he too is wearing halti collar

Like you alex, the dog trainers advised me to get the halti collar for Jack. Jack wears that collar when going for walks and its fantastic! He walks at your pace and there no stress on his neck.

Well finally we have our halti harness. The local pet shop was out of stock for ages so I ordered one on amazon instead. It was very slow in arriving - very frustrating!
Anyway we used it this morning but were a bit concerned that it didn't fit her very well. We got the medium as the pet shop owner recommended. The chest that goes round and under her belly goes small enough for her but the straps that go over her shoulders and round the front don't seem in the right place. We gave it a tentative go this morning anyway - I was pleased that she seemed to be walking much better even though the harness was a little big. We took it off for her to run about in the park though.

However I just took her for walk number 2 and she was really bad. Seemed worse than with her collar. She got distracted a couple of times and just wouldn't turn around and I really struggled to get her attention. At one point she just sat in the road and refused to move. I had to swap back to her collar and come home. It didn't help that a couple of passers by gave us quite a wide birth Not had that before. They probably thought I was an idiot as I couldn't get her under control which upset me.

Very upset that it didn't work out. I hate when walks go badly. Gonna have to try the small harness for her I think, or give up on the idea entirely.

On a separate note. She has destroyed her mattress in her crate today So all in all, not a great day.

Dora will need a few more walks to get used to it, don't worry

We checked the harness with our dog trainer this morning and she thinks the fit isn't perfect but that it is ok to use, so we will persist with it. You're right Dora probably just needs a bit more time to get used to it.

I'd just like to report that Dora is getting used to her halti harness now. It has taken us all a few days to adjust to it, but we are getting on much better.
She is much calmer wearing it and doesn't walk on two feet any more when she she's something interesting!
We need more practice at walking past people and dogs. Maybe a few walks in town would be a good idea...

One issue we are having though is that she doesn't seem able to run in it, so we have to take it off her so she can have a ruin about in the park which is a bit of a faff.

I would definitely recommend the halti harness for excitable dogs.