Can someone please outline the advantages and disadvantages of harnesses

[pip1965]

I am feeling really confused here I hope someone can help me!

I have always prefered the idea of a harness ,like the dog games ones,because I am concerned about damaging  a dogs shoulder,windpipe or neck,it just seems more logical to me that a harness which distributes the weight over a larger area would be better for the dog.Having said that I do also think that it is important to learn to walk well with a collar and lead if at all possible,and currentlky Otoo is doing well with this

But  at the training class I have just started the leader is dead against harnesses and says they put pressure on the heart and lungs and various other things.

Which is best,is it just personal prefernce,should I use a combination or would you only use a harness if your dog turned out to be a puller

[Jeanette]

From my experience, harnesses do not teach your dog not to pull - mine used to pull from her chest area when she was a puppy and ended up pulling even more than with a collar and lead, at the time for me it was preferable to the pulling on her neck and the potential damage.    IMO they don't teach anything and if you are training your dog to walk with a lead and collar then I don't see the point of ruining your training by then putting a harness on outside of training iyswim.

Mine still pulls at nearly 2 years old but she has had just the lead and collar from around 7 months of age as the pulling got horrendous with the harness  - I don't think I'll ever have a loose lead walker on the start of our walks but she walks perfectly on the way back. 

Forgot to say, mine used to wear the fleece lined harnesses from Dog Games and I really do think they are the best harnesses on the market for a puppy.

[Oliver21508]

Harnesses are good for grabbing a dog that is in trouble from water, over a fence etc, good for distributing weight over a larger area if you have a strong puller, good for putting long lines onto.

They are bad if you need to control the head (for example to get the mouth away from children, dogs etc), bad for stopping pulling and training.

In training classes, I always use a collar, as you can control them better, but off lead, we put the harness on so that we can grab him easier if he decides to be a bit cheeky and run around.

[SimonandMandy]

We went to a harness early on but made the usual mistakes so anti pull was no longer anti pull, our trainer had no issue with us training in a harness. 

The good thing with harnesses is that it stops the choking and potential windpipe damage but unless used correctly from day one will not teach walk to heel, I am not sure about other problems which may be depend partly on type of harnesss.  We now mainly use a harness for flyball to hold Harv and if we are walking around busy towns as Harv can tend to want to be off everywhere for a sniff still in these circumstances as he is very rarely on lead these days.  The other thing you do need to watch carefully is matting under the pits which is a constant nightmare....

We found the Mekuti balance harness a great training aid as a third option.

[mcphee]

I found a harness useless at stopping pulling. If anything it made it worse. I had to use a half check for a while, which worked brilliantly. Then I returned to a flat collar and have worked  hard on heel. However, if I jogged with Rufus, I would get a specialist harness, and there is a warning on the bike attachment I looked at to use with a harness only. If the new trainer makes me go back to the long line to improve recall, I think I will use a ruffwear harness, to avoid pressure on his neck.

[fasalldes]

This thread is very interesting because Duke is becoming a nightmare when walking, he,s 4 months old. We use a harness and a collar, reason being he does back flips and the collar helps me to control him when he,s excited, but upon reading this thread i don,t think the harness is doing him any good with the pulling and the excitedness when he goes into a flip, he usually does this when he see,s a leaf or a person walking in the other direction or it can be a tree. I must say that he is very well behaved at home and he sits very well at the roads, only to lunge forwards after i say its ok to go on. We do the sit and wait for a few minutes also to calm the behavour. I wonder if i should buy a half choke collar to check him? Any help would be appreciated.