How my dog fights my exercise routine
 

Ok, so I'm utterly out of shape. And I have a 75 pound Labrador Chow 10 month old puppy. (my goal is to be less than twice his size!) And I'm pretty sure the answer to this issue is making him go to dog obediance school, but I'm broke as a joke, and I'd love some at home, DIY tips.
So I'm working on being able to jog an entire mile without having to stop. I can walk it, no problem, and I certainly can't run it full speed. So Bear and I go out (and he also kind of has to be part of the equation, I don't have time for 2 walks - one for me and one for bear ;) ) and it starts fine. He will walk beside me and all is well. But he only has two speeds! It's either walk or full out run!
He has a shoulder harness, so that makes him easier to control. And he's a nice dog, he would learn easily enough if I knew how to teach him. The other problem (how many have I mentioned now in this one problem message!) is that my boyfriend runs with him, so I guess he's gotten used to full speed running.

So my question, if anyone is still here after this long, ridiculous puppy post, is what do I do to make him jog with me?!

Thanks! :dizzy:

try a head collar, it really helps to keep them from pulling ahead to much.

The head collar is called a haltie and it is very effective (but not painful for the dog). Here's a site that describes how it works.

You and your boyfriend are going to have to work together to train him, but if you're both doing it, Bear will learn that much quicker.

Good luck.

Here's the way we taught my dog how to keep a certain tension (or slack rather) with different speed walkers. We started doing this with him at about 8 months.

When he starts to pull on the leash (we just have a collar/leash) at all, the walker instantly stopped. When he stopped pulling, the walker started back. We also used a short lead for a while (like 3 foot), so he was close to us.

Now he's on a "regular" leash and manages between running with my husband and walking with me. With my husband, he tends to run at speed right by him; with me, he goes in front and the leash is taught but he's not pulling.

It took him until about a year old to get it down pat (and get a little bit of that super puppy excitement out). He will slip up from time to time if he sees a friend out running or if a cat comes too close, but if you stop or make the bad noise at him (it's kind of like the loud buzzier type noise you make at toddlers), he will get back to behaving.

He's 3 now so he definitely has not hit the calm adult stage and is about as hyper as he was at 6 months.

And there are excellent resources online for training dogs. We didn't have the money to get our dog "professionally" trained, but with his breed type there was no question of him being untrained (half pit-bull, half boxer, all adorable).

I have a Lab/Chow mix named Raven. I totally understand your challenge. Try the head collar,dog classes and work together to train. Raven still wants to do what she wants (she's 13 now) but knows who is the Alpha in the pack. Try watching It's me or the dog show. You get a lot of good tips there too.

Many stores like PetsMart offer training and obedience classes, as does the Humane Society. These are very low-cost, and I highly recommend that you sign up so that you, your boyfriend, and your dog can become properly trained.

Knowing how to handle a dog is not automatic, and it's easy to make mistakes that cause life to be difficult in the long run. One of the things to learn is how to walk, job, or run with the dog on a leash. Again, this isn't always necessarily a simple matter of take the dog and head out the door.

Please take advantage of whatever resources you can find. Sometimes the humane societies also have books that can help new owners if you just can't afford a class. :)

Jay