Leash pulling - journey with my dog who is terrified of being outisde

You know those videos of trainers just walking a dog who is overly excited, pulling on the leash. And all they did was walk the dog back and forth for a few minutes to make the dog walk perfectly next to them, with full attention? These videos really frustrated me because there was a period of time when leash pulling was my biggest struggle with Lucky—bigger than her reactivity.

The moment we stepped outside the building, and whenever she wasn’t reacting, she was just in full flight-mode. For her, it was not about food or me. It was about getting away from wherever she was to a safe place. Even in empty streets and open spaces—she’d pull, walk in circles, yank in every direction 😩 Trust me, I’ve done A LOT of these back-and-forths, corrections, etc. They did nothing. Every walk was so exhausting.

It took over a year to transition Lucky into walking without trying to rip my arms out. I know that anxiety was the driving force behind her pulling. So more needed to be done to solve the underlying problem. I’ve since involved medication (will be posting update on it soon), building confidence and trust, focus training, and also me working on my leash management. I can go on and on about different exercises I’ve done to improve her walking on the leash. Our daily walks basically serve as training for us, sometimes it takes 15 minutes just to walk a few meters. Here are some examples of how I act upon her pulling:

• Stop when she pulls, keep the leash long (in safe areas), make her mistake obvious to her so she knows she should be close to me when I stop walking.
• Walk very slowly when she is pulling, faster when she isn’t
• In stressful environments (when it is too much for her to handle): keep the leash short so she is next to you and walk fast past the scary things.

Does your dog pull? What has worked for you? What hasn’t?