Gentle Leader Head Collar ?

[meryllake]

Anyone tried this before, any good? Does it really help dogs manner?

[Marty11]

I use Premier Easy Walk. It's a frontal harness system. Love it.

[mastifflover]

I am all about the harness more so than anything on the head. I used the lupi harness and had great success with it.

[Dog Dancer]

I use a Halti, similar to the Gentle Leader so far as I can tell. My lab pulls (only with me, she doesn't need the halti with my hubby) and I can much better control her with the head harness. (I know, she doesn't respect me because I let her get away with waaay too much.) I have tried a full body type harness but found she could pull even harder with that, I only use the body harness now when I walk her at 5:30 in the morning and I know I won't run into other dogs and such. A friend of mine uses the Easy Walk frontal harness and really loves it for her large pulling dog. The only thing to remember is no matter what technique works for your dog, training is the best solution. The Gentle Leader and Halti just help you to deal with the situation, but doesn't make it go away. I also find with any of these harness type items (head or body) it is very hard to give the dog a correction. You can't jerk the head harness for fear of hurting their neck, and a jerk correction in a body harness is difficult at best and moves the whole body but doesn't really redirect the dogs attention.

[cell]

The dog I had as a kid wore a face halti since he was a chronic puller, it didn't help him at all, he would rub the fur off the bridge of his nose with pulling, get whiplash at the end of the leash, and ran from it when we went to put it on.
So if you get one get it somewhere you can return it if it doesn't help, you will be able to determine its effectiveness pretty quickly, dogs respond to it or they don't.
I'm not sure about the body harness as it is fairly new but it won't control your dogs head in any way, so if your dog is reactive to other dogs or animals etc you won't be able to control the head/neck area of your dog.

[mastifflover]

I find the problem with Haltis and the other ones that go on the noses is when you try and use a regular collar they pull again. It also depends on the dog I could never use one with Clark he can get a muzzle off in seconds flat so a halti would not stand a chance. I use a martingale collar with Clark this is the most effective for him. But I am in favor of the Lupi harness. It worked well for me and a Bloodhound I had who had never been walked on a leash and could drag me down the street. Put him in the Lupi in a few days he was walking like a gentleman and I went back to a collar and he still walked without pulling. As far as redirecting I use my voice for that, and a quick jerk diverts the attention to you

[Meatos]

I have a reactive great dane and the Halti has been an INCREDIBLE tool. Prior to using the Halti I had tried the Gentle Leader and hated it. It rubbed into my dog's eyes and she was constantly pawing it off, despite a few days' worth of desensitisation before she ever actually wore it. I gave up. The Halti has been amazing...I love it.

As for dogs pulling when switching back to a regular collar, that's not an equipment fail, that's a handler fail. Control collars don't replace proper training. A dog still needs to learn and be reinforced to walk beside you, whatever they are wearing.