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| Freedom, No-Pull Harness |
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If your dog pulls on the leash, don't use a regular harness (they're made for pulling), a head halter (dogs hate them), or a harness that connects to the dog's chest (they throw your dog off balance)!
Try the Freedom, No-Pull Harness from 2 Hounds Design instead!
Why Use a Freedom, No-Pull Harness?
Halters
are designed specifically for horses. Prey animals (which is what horses are, in terms of their evolutionary history) are
used to turning their heads to see what might be coming at them
from behind. This is one way they're able to avoid predators.
Dogs, on the other hand, are predators at heart. So every time a dog
goes to sniff the trail of something interesting, or sees a friendly
face down the street, and pulls to move ahead, the head halter causes him to
lose control over his head movements, which feels very unnatural. This
is a constant form of punishment for a dog. And while it's milder than jerking his
neck with a choke chain or prong collar, it's still punitive. And
it's why almost all dogs hate wearing head halters.
As for the kind of harness designed with the ring located at the dog's
chest, dogs don't hate them as much as they do head halters, but they work by throwing the dog off-balance physically, messing with his
center of gravity, which is also punitive.
Meanwhile the Freedom No-Pull Harness imitates the way dogs and
wolves
feel when they travel together in-synch, side by side.
An interesting fact about horses is that they're able to adjust their gait to
accommodate a shared emotional center of gravity with the rider. No
other animal can do that. One theory as
to how horses do this is that they can feel an emotional center of
gravity between their body and the body of the rider. It's what makes horses
easier to
ride than burros, camels, or elephants.
Oddly enough, dogs and wolves have a similar natural
gift. When wolves travel together, they move
in-synch, particularly while hunting. And the reason they can do this is that they're able
to feel a shared emotional center of gravity between themselves and
their
packmates. And since all
obedience behaviors, including the heel, are based on the predatory
motor patterns of wolves, this is also how dogs are
able to perform a perfect heel, through a shared emotional center of
gravity with their handlers.
Because of its unique design, I believe that the Freedom, No-Pull Harness
actually mimics this
feeling in dogs, creating the same kind of shared
emotional center of gravity, inducing dogs to walk next to their owners
in a way that feels totally natural to them.
That doesn't necessarily
mean that if you use the Freedom No-Pull Harness you won't have
to do any training with your dog at all. But it does mean that at
least you'll be starting out on the right foot!
- Lee Charles Kelley, April
19, 2010
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