This question is directed to Jonni who has some experience in transitioning from wilderness trailing to suburban/urban trailing with the dogs she has helped to train. My dog, a 19 month old Golden Retriever, trails off lead in the wilderness because he goes top speed, even on tracks aged several hours, and there is no way I can run with him.  I now want to start suburban/urban trailing with him on a harness, but am not sure of the best way to slow him down. I am in search and rescue, not LE. I still will not be able to run with him. He pulls with all his might in a harness. Any suggestions? Pat

Pat,

Hopefully you have already put a "slow" command in the dog in another aspect of his training (obedience, agility). We use leash pressure plus the verbal "slow" command to tell the dog not to pull too hard or move too fast in the harness. Most wilderness dogs, when faced with the urban environment, have a tendency to slow down anyway. This is due to the difference in scent picture and sensory overload that comes from all the urban activity they are not used to working thru. The change of the training environment along with the use of the slow command should achieve a speed you are comfortable with. If not.....

Another technique is to rotate the prong collar to where the ring is at 6 o'clock on the neck of the dog and hook the tracking line onto the ring and run it under either the left or right shoulder. If your harness has a bottom ring on the stomach side you can run the line thru it also. This pulls the dog's head down and slows the dog as he pulls to track. If you are worried about a motivational issue with the correction from the prong you can reverse the prong on the neck (just turn it inside out) and it will accomplish the same task without the corrective action. If using a choke....dead ring the choke so it will not tighten. The downside to using this is it pulls the dog's nose to the ground and depending on type of training scenario, the scent might be higher than the nose. I have never used the harnesses that have prongs on them so I can't speak to their effectiveness.

In an urban environment, you will have many different scents. If you contaminate your trail, the dog will have to slow down in order to differentiate and discriminate scents during this learning process. Use this to your advantage so you can teach your dog the speed that you are comfortable with. 

And then you might have to address this as an obedience issue, using your tracking line to walk your dog and never allowing him to pull on it other than to tighten the slack and instituting the "slow" command in this atmosphere before harnessing him for urban work. I do this with my on-line trailers and at the beginning, in order to keep them motivated, I let them move out a little, I apply leash pressure and use "slow" to tone them down to a comfortable speed.

Jonni Joyce