There will be times that you will need to hold onto your dog’s harness or collar suddenly for safety reasons or to interrupt escalating play between your dog and another.

If your dog hasn’t been positively introduced to you holding their harness or collar, you run the risk of startling your dog, which could cause them to redirect onto you if they are highly aroused.

For this reason, it’s really important to practice harness and collar holds well ahead of needing to use them.

Start by feeding your dog a treat from one hand as you touch their collar or harness with the other.

When they are doing well with this, move to touching their collar/harness BEFORE you feed them.

Keep an eye on your dog’s body language, you want them to be relaxed throughout.

Progress to holding onto your dog’s harness or collar a bit longer before rewarding. You’ll also want to speed up how quickly you reach for their harness too, to prepare them for real world scenarios. Take it at your dog’s pace and build up gradually.

You can even practice collar and harness holds after recalling your dog. This will help prepare for clipping the lead back on at the end of a walk, when your dog is ready for off lead adventures.