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And if I may : never underestimate treat value The more difficult is the behavior change, the more value the treat should have For example, to brush Loki, we had trouble to make him stay in place, while using normal treats, because some places were unpleasant to him as he has knots When we switch to cooked hot dogs, no problem anymore, he would stay, and I could even pull on the hairs quite strong without him bulging

While Esther doesn't snarl, she was (and still can be) Horrible with following where I wanted her to go. Three things have helped immensely in the last 3 weeks. 1. The leash pressure Adrienne mentioned. I'm practicing this in the yard, but I really like the couch suggestion for getting started. Far less distractions! I do a smacking sound or say, "here" and when she's at my desired future heel position she gets a treat. 1b. Every single potty trip is a training session for us 2. Emergency U-turns - they're not just for emergencies. I attribute this to most of our success and her decreased pulling. You'll need to find your own personal touch on it. For instance, Esther responds best if I hold and lift the leash about 18" from her and pivot around that and her. Gertie needs me to use the leash pressure on a more parallel angle. There's an inner and an outer u-turn. Inner you pivot around your dog, outer your dog pivots around you. I attribute the u-turns to the occasional attention heeling I get from her and it's a thing of beauty! I feel highly accomplished teaching her how to walk, lol. 3. Walk in a big circle going in whichever direction you want her to heel on. I have a right-handed heel because our parks require us to "curb" our dogs, which means they have to walk on our right-hand side. So when Esther starts pulling ahead of me I'll start veering into her and use my legs (gently!) to move her in the direction I'm going. I use this method on the u-turn as well, but she's usually much closer to me when I do those. For all three I use the treat as a lure. For leash pressure it's Really tough to do, but I was taught to keep my hand stationary rather than using it to pull the dog. Instead, the treat is what's going to encourage her to come to my hand and put slack in that leash. The first few days were awful and aggravating. By the 5th day she was beginning to respond marvelously to the U-turn so I make sure to do Lots of those in the yard every potty break. It might take us 10 turns to get to the back end of the yard, for example. I do it whether there's something I want her to turn away from or not and I keep the treat at my thigh which makes her have to come to that position for the reward on the inner turn. For the outer turn I'm still working on my own coordination - for some reason this one is more difficult for me. She swings a bit wide, but it's the same as the inner turn - keep that treat next to the thigh so she has to stick to you like glue. A useful tool I have (because I'm arthritic and am sometimes super stiff and not quite able to maintain a firm grip) is a leash that I can hook around my waist. It gives me a little extra leverage. My in-person trainer forgot hers here and I've fallen in love with it. She said use it until she gets back and use it I have! It's paracord braided with a clip on each end (no handle). Every 18" or so there is a closed ring the clips can be attached to that allows for so so many configurations. I can clip it around my waist and put a traffic handle closer to the dog's collar. I can shorten it by clipping some of the length around to the section around my waist. Here's a video of the leash I "borrowed." I have her bringing 2 to me on her next visit. I love that I can use up to 6' and can shorten it to my liking. I also discovered that if I hook the handle end onto 3 rings and slide it under the pantry threshold, then close the door, Esther is effectively tethered and I can move about the kitchen freely (she's incontinent and I like to limit her to one area for me to clean rather than me Easter egg hunting for puddles). https://www.leashesbyliz.com/multipurpose-leash-video