The next step is to find out if our collection of harness wearers will generalize to collar lead and off lead. So far, even though I'm still rewarding Fraser when he's attentively walking right beside me, if I put the lead on his collar, he pulls. My training is complicated by the fact that there is no place is can let him off lead as there are too many hazards. There are too many pit bull type crosses around, often off leash. A local dog ended with over 100 stitches from an attack one street over. It's ironic that I'm on the edge of thousands of miles of forest, but feel it too risky to let Fraser run free as coyotes will lure a dog away and kill them, wolves and cougars will kill on sight. The bears will mostly just run away though opinions vary on whether a barking dog will provoke an attack. I'm not sure why we're having so much interaction with predatory animals that normally are far off in the deep forest, but there have been cougar attacks on sheep and llamas locally and sightings of wolves from people walking their dogs. Actually, I'm not too keen on walking in the forest right outside my fence on my own account as cougars do attack joggers and hikers, though non locally so far. In any case, these considerations mean I keep him on a retractable leash and the first part of any walk is to let him trot off some energy and have a doggy forage about. The homeward stretch is when we practice loose leash walking. I'd love to hear how training progresses for your pups.
