Hates harness

[[email protected]]

Hello, my dog Toby and I are new here. Toby is 10 months old chihuahua. He is very cleaver and very friendly (maybe too friendly, because he wants to play with everyone). Since we got him he didn't like handling. He didn't want to be picked up. He loves to play and snuggle but everything must be in his terms.

I taught him some cues and now he knows when I want to pick him up, touch him, clean his eyes or teeth.

The major problem is harness. He hates harnesses. I bought a lot of different types to be sure that they are soft and comfortable but it didn't help. I tried desensitise him towards his harness. I used a lot of treats and touch training. Now he is willing to touch the harness with his nose, eat treats from his harness (if it is on the ground) but that is all. Every time I pick up the harness he jumps away. There is now improvement what so ever.

The problem is, that at the end of the day, I have to put some harness on him anyway and take him for walk. He loves his walks and running on the beach, he just has problem with the harness. 

Please, do you have any suggestions what to do to improve our situation? Thank you.

Katerina

 

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi there, welcome to the forums! Toby is such a cutie!

This is not an uncommon issue. We need to go very slow in the process and this can sometimes mean skipping walks for some time or using some other type of walking equipment so that we protect the harness from becoming "poisoned"(the dog viewing it with suspicion and therefore dreading wearing it which makes the process much more difficult).

If you are stuck with the picking up the harness part, it may help to turn this  into a game of picking up the harness and then tossing a treat. Pick up harness, toss treat, pick up harness, toss treat.  Repeat several times and aim for a lovely positive conditioned emotional response. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/conditioned-emotional-response-cer/ 

After some point, we can turn this into a shaping game, where every time you pick up the harness and he looks at it, you toss a treat. Then aim for him walking towards the harness, just a small step, toss a treat behind him to reset, and wait for another step in the right direction. Keep doing this and always aim for a positive conditioned emotional response. 

After several reps, we can progress to him nose targeting it, and then him putting the head through it if it's a model that requires that or stepping in it if its a step-in model. I have noticed that many dogs struggle with putting the head through, so a step in harness may work better for these folks. You may also need to work on forming positive associations with the clipping noise before putting it on, by clipping and tossing a treat, unclipping and tossing a treat. 

For challenging cases, I may use other objects initially to teach the dog to feel confident putting the head through such as a hula-hoop, then I may further practice by crafting some other smaller loop such as one made from a cardboard box to practice with. What I have noticed is that the dog needs to feel confident in inserting the head in, if we make any movement towards their head with the harness, that causes them to back off. 

If the dog ever struggles with any of these actions, then we need to  take that as a sign of needing to split the exercise into smaller steps. 

The whole process can take time and lots of patience, which often leads to dog owners to often just pick up the dog and force the harness, but the problem is that at some point, the dog may resent being picked up and may play hard to catch, adding a further challenging element to the problem. 

Sometimes, having a volunteer canine buddy over that is eager to wear a harness and having this dog wear the harness several times, may help convince these guys that a harness is nothing to worry about and that it's the key to unlocking the fun outdoor world.