Stop it and Behave! (House Training Line)

Member Name: AJ26

Product:	House Training Line
Date:	09/03/07 (244 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great training aid for dogs, cheap, effective

Disadvantages: Not very good if you have a big dog and he pulls against you

What is it?
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It is a 2.5m indoor training lead made by the Company of Animals. It is a nylon flat lead with a clip at one end to attach it to your dogs collar. It is designed for use indoors to interrupt a dogs unwanted behaviour, such as jumping, chewing or stealing. The house line comes with a training guide with practical advice on how to use the line to improve your dogs behaviour.

Why would you need a house line?
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The house line allows you to tackle unwanted behaviour without giving your dog direct interaction and attention. Dogs crave human attention, whether that be good praise for doing something right or being told off for chewing. To them any attention is good and therefore dogs can continue to perform bad behaviours e.g. stealing socks because rather than enjoying the actual behaviour they like the fact it gets your attention and makes you run round the room after them.

Can’t I just use an ordinary lead or a piece of rope?
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Well you could but the houseline is better for the following reasons. Firstly it is longer than the average dog lead meaning that you can grab hold of the houseline easier without your dog trying to bite you or run off. Secondly there is no large handle at the end as there is with a standard dog lead so the dog is less likely to trip itself up. Thirdly the houseline is quite a flat lead so doesn’t get stuck under doors as a rope would.

How to use the house line.
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You should have the house line attached to your dogs collar at all times while you are at home. The house line should only be left on whilst you are there to ensure your dog does not come to any harm. The house line should only be attached to a standard collar and not to any kind of choke chain or slip collars as there is a risk the dog could tangle itself and choke himself.

It should be remembered that the house lines purpose is to interrupt the dogs unwanted behaviour and not to deliver punishment.

The training guide which comes with the house line offers practical applications of the lead.

Chewing - If your dog starts chewing something it shouldn’t then pick up the end of the line and calmly guide the dog away then release. If the dog returns to the item then repeat as many times as required. Provide your dog with suitable items to chew e.g. toys such as kongs.

Stealing - If your dog steals an item, pick up the end of the line to stop him from running away and turning it into a game. Use the command “Leave” and remove the item, do not pull it as this will then turn into a tug-of-war game which will give the dog reinforcement to steal again as it results in a fun game.

Jumping - If a dog jumps up on you and you shout no or push it away it is getting attention and making it likely to repeat this action. Ignore your dog when it jumps, turn your back on him or walk away. You can use the house line to lead your dog away from the person he is jumping on (assuming its not you!). Teach the dog to sit before people greet him.

General Training - You can also use the house line to help teach recall by guiding the dog towards you if he doesn’t come when called. You can also use it to teach him to wait at doors and not to run out.

My Experience
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We have an 10 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy. We have been going to puppy training classes for about 6 months now and we have seen a big improvement in him. However when he was younger we still had times when his behaviour was quite challenging - he would try to chew our table, jump onto our cream sofa (yes not terribly practical with a dog!), jump up at people when they came into our house and then when we tried to stop him doing any of this he would try and bite us and generally run round the house. All normal behaviour for a pup trying to exert his dominance in the pack but all made the more difficult by the fact he is a big puppy, larger than most grown up dogs. Anyway we decided to have a one-to-one session with our dog trainer and she started us on a behaviour modification programme - modifying our behaviour as well as the dogs!

The basic idea was to put us back at the top of the pack and for our dog to realise he wasn’t the boss. A lot of the behaviour he was showing was not aggressive but simply attention seeking. What we needed to do was to show him the correct behaviour but to do so without rewarding him with attention for the bad behaviours. Now there were lots of things to do but one of these things was to get a training line to use in the house to interrupt him when he started to chew things or jump on the sofa.

After a few weeks we saw a huge improvement in his behaviour. We now no longer use the houseline as we no longer need it but it made a huge difference, now I’m not saying he’s an angel (far from it) but there are definite improvements. Using the house line has meant we could interrupt him from chewing etc quickly and without the usual chase games as he runs away from us. He did sit and chew the house line itself but I would rather he chewed the lead than chewed my furniture.

The only downside I have found with the lead is it is quite thin and there is no handle at the end so if you are trying to use it to remove your dog from the room and he decides he doesn’t want to go its quite painful on your hands as the lead cuts in. This probably wouldn’t be such a problem with small puppies but my dog was about 40kg at the time so its quite a weight when he decides he is on strike! A small handle would be helpful but then I guess it would go back to the problem of it potentially tripping the dog up or getting stuck under the doors.

I have found the house training line to be of real benefit in improving my dogs behaviour. I wish we had started using it before then we might not have had some of the problems we do. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Cost and Availability
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We bought our House Training Line online at PetPlanet and it cost only £1.99 but you can buy them at pet shops such as Pets at Home as well. Well worth the money.

Summary: A training lead for use indoors to stop your dogs unwanted behaviours.