Pulling on the lead & aggression towards dogs

Hi, we adopted an 18 mth old staffy called Tiny back in January from a local rescue. We're having terrible problems with her pulling on the lead and have tried various leads, harnesses and all to little or no avail, she's still pulling our arms out of our sockets! The other problem we're having is her aggression towards other dogs and, although she hasn't bitten anymore, she does tend to warn them off if they try to stroke her. Any help/advice about suitable leads/harnesses would be greatly appreciated. I think we're going to have to get a 1 2 1 dog trainer concerning the aggression and also the lead pulling too.

First of all, don't worry too much. What you're finding with Tiny is normal and there are things you can do about it.

Any dog can learn to pull against any harness or collar, unless its action is so unpleasant that the negative of the collar outweighs the positive they get from pulling. Much the best way is to train - it sounds like you're up for that anyway. I'd recommend you look at Victoria Stilwell's videos, especially the 'loose lead walking' ones. Her method does work. I also teach my dogs to walk to heel off lead, in the garden using a treat by your hip to encourage them to the right place. Combining those two methods can be very effective. It's not usually an overnight fix so you may need to invest a bit of time into practise but you'll get there in the end!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0C724F6F6A597540

What appears to be aggression is usually in fact defensiveness. There are various methods that can help settle a dog and working with a trainer can be a good way to start, provided you find a trainer who works with positive methods only (in other words lots of rewarding the dog for doing the right thing and not punishing for doing the wrong thing).

Methods that we on here have found helpful include working with treats to encourage the dog to focus on you and look to you for support, clicker training and the 'look at that!' method, where the object of the dog's fears turn into part of a game that gets rewards, and the one I am using with my worrier, the BAT method. There's a thread I started on here about it.

The key to all of them, though, is not to allow Tiny to get too close to a trigger until she's happy with it, as in really happy and relaxed, and for you to keep relaxed and so not send her signals of anxiety yourself. You'll be able to do that much more if you keep a distance as well.

I would also look at muzzle training her, just as a temporary thing so that if you do have someone who insists on stroking her and she does snap, she can't do any damage. A muzzle is also a good way of discouraging people from stroking her in the first place. This is a good muzzle training video

https://www.bluecross.org.uk/pet-advice/dogs-and-muzzle-training

and if you do go down that route, I'd suggest the Baskerville Ultra, which tend to fit staffie noses better than most.

Have a look through the various threads on here, there's a lot of information through questions asked by others, then come back if you want more on anything. You'll find several of us have worked through the problems you're having, so we'll understand where you're coming from!