Gentle Leader
I don’t endorse much. Beside blindly pledging loyalty to all things Apple, I take a rather skeptical and distanced view to all product claims. I love my T-Mobile Sidekick phone’s keyboard, but I think it’s shitty that the phone is locked and can’t sync with my computer.
But I just started using something that I need to give a shout-out to.
Maybe I should explain something first. We have a rather naughty dog.
It’s really not her fault. We adopted her from the Oregon Humane Society, and we found her to be a loving and really sweet dog. She knows how to sit, lay-down, speak, and stay (kinda). But she’s not so good outside on a leash. She lunges at people, trying to smell them; she tries to bite bike riders as they go past. She really doesn’t like the bikes. She, like many other dogs, also likes to pull on the leash.
So we decided to get what’s called a gentle leader. It goes around their nose and clips around the back of head. Never have I been so impressed.
After a brief freakout period, wherein she pawed at her nose as though it was monster, I took her outside to go to the bathroom. She walked calmly next to me, didn’t pull, didn’t lunge at anyone and was amazingly docile.
All in all, in this brief experience with the Gentle Leader, I’ve been thoroughly impressed. It actually works. What a relief.
Make sure you get the version I linked above. It works better than the Halti, which was far too complicated and distracting for her.
We couldn’t figure out how to get the Gentle Leader on Zoe. She kept getting out of it. Maybe when you come to visit you can give us some lessons. I know it shouldn’t be that complicated but both of us tried to no avail.
Ours came with a handy instructional DVD. I was surprised at how tight it actually needs to be. Chloe is quite the escape artist too, but once we got it tight enough she hasn’t gotten it off. Expect much dramatic protesting…its kind of funny actually.