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I've only ever used a flat buckle collar on Emery. I'm lucky in that she is very focused on me and responds well to leash corrections. The only thing I cannot recall her from is a squirrel. But that took a lot of work. I admit she is a bit rusty too since I have not been able to spend as much time with her as before (baby...). Pattymac is right- only flat buckle for Rally-O or agility too.

The other halti style on the market is newer- called the newtrix. Instead of pulling the head from the side of the face or under the jaw it operates like a horse bridle. When the dog pulls the lines pull back, and the strap at the back of the head pulls and puts pressure on the back of the skull. Head comes up and their own pulling is uncomfortable on the spine. So they stop pulling. I've seen it work quite successfully, but it doesn't mean the goal isn't a loose leash walk with a regular collar. Just a step to get there.

I use the Hustle-Up collar and 6ft leash on Yoshi and have had great success with it, my other dog, Tia needs to use a harness for medical reasons and Rosie, my older girl just uses a regular collar.

Well after a few days of seeing how Guardian reacts, reading lots of books and talking to trainers from all over... I decided that the e-collar was not for me.

Why? Because it was just too much of a "false positive" in my mind.

I felt the shock for myself-it was more of a strange feeling then that of a painful one. However my reservations about this product still remained, there is no logical sequence of events for the dog and the correction does absolutely nothing to establish the handler's position as alpha. It is the person who should be giving the correction and doing the praise.

About the sensation; while it may not hurt it certainly does cause confusion. If you were getting zapped and did not know where that feeling was coming from wouldn't you be scared and confused? I mean even if it is just "tingly" it would certainly startle you especially if you had no idea where it was coming from.

Halti's made my dog freak out.

Gentle Leader harness worked great for a while, then the dog learned how to pull against it.

Choke chain, dogs pull against is anyways.

Buckle collar, dogs pull lots!

E-collar I have never used. I think they are acceptable in a proper situation and if you do not set it to a point where the dog is hurt. When I would say they are useful, is when you need to do a correction from a distance. For example I saw a Dog whisperer epsiode where the dog chased farm equipment and Caesar used a shock collar....the dog would not chase if they were around, so they hid and gave the dog a shock correction when he chased the machinery. Something like this is acceptable, when you need to use a correction but can't feasibly do it with a collar and leash.

Has anyone heard of the Lupi? or tried it? It's not a harness, although looks like it. For those dogs that seem to be immuned to regular collar corrections...I swear by it.
It is the figure 8 style and it's pressure points all hit muscle so it's good for any bone/joint issues. The idea is when the dog pulls it tightens and puts pressure in the underarms which is soo uncomfortable to dogs, they will avoid this uncomfortable feeling. It also avoids that whole frustrating situation of the collar not staying up high on the dogs neck.

I had one for my first dog, it worked well to keep her from pulling but did nothing training wise. I tried it on Bayley and it worked ok but didn't really teach her anything. Recently I've seen alot of different 'training' harnesses on dogs. Seems like people are trying to take the easy way out and not really teach their dogs how to walk properly with them.