Tranquility

Some very good tips and ideas here - the cheese spray can is ingenious. I have been doing some of the other mentioned things here and they having an effect, he's much better than he was 6 months ago for instance. Thanks for the advice everyone!

Hello everyone, This is my first time here and I'm looking for some advice. I'm a first time dog owner and have a 17 month old male BC whom I would love to correct some behaviours on. The biggest issue I have is that he relentlessly pulls on the leash when I walk him. To me it seems like he gets overstimulated or overwhelmed by cars/people/other dogs and doesn't calm down til he's home again. I think it's his mind that gets so much momentum, as it's like he gets into an unbreakable stress/panic where he completely tunnel visions. If I walk him on the leash at home he doesn't pull at all. I have tried calming him down outside by taking a break from the walk and sitting him down, which does work, but it doesn't take long at all before he gets going again and it makes things very silly to take a few minutes break to calm him down every minute or so of walking. I am hoping somebody will suggest a better way than this. I have tried giving him corrections in the form of a tug on the leash when he tries to pull in the direction of things of interest (trees, poles, etc. he wants to smell everything and everyone that walks past him) and while it does have some effect, he reverts to the behavior right away. Perhaps I'm being too timid from giving him the right amount of force in the tug, I don't know. I don't want to hurt the little guy. I've been using a thick rope leash which tends to choke him a bit when he pulls. I used to use a regular harness but this gave me much more control over him, but perhaps the choking adds to his stressed out mind. I've seen people with harnesses that clip on middle of the chest or harnesses that go on the face and have been considering trying these as solutions. Anybody who's had a pulling dog tried this? Did it actually stop the behaviour? My goal is really to teach this dog to walk at my heel, as now when he pulls he's out in front of me. He still wants to smell practically everything on any grass we walk past and I wonder how I can break all these distracting habits he has and get him to focus just on me. Would love any advice for accomplishing this. Thanks!