I bought this product in hopes of utilizing it to more effectively train my sixty-five pound German Shepherd. She is a good dog, but still has some problems when she is around other dogs on leash.
The Halti is worn a bit like a muzzle, except it lacks the cage part around the dog’s mouth. This enables the dog to open its mouth to eat, drink, play, etc. You place the Halti over the dog’s snout, and it is secured in place behind the dogs head, below its ears. The straps are adjustable in order to fit the dog properly, and there is an extra strap that connects to the dog’s regular collar as a safety precaution in case the dog slips out of it, or as an additional place to hold the dog.
The Halti similar to a choke chain or pinch collar in that when you give a correction to the dog, the collar becomes smaller. The extra material is located around the dog’s mouth, so you are essentially closing his mouth (if he’s barking or anything), and redirecting his head away from the distraction in question. When the dog is walking well and with a loose leash, the Halti is relaxed, and your dog is free to pant, drink, eat, etc.
I read the directions thoroughly on how to use it, properly fit it, and how to get my dog accustomed to it. I took the time to get her accustomed to the Halti before we went for a walk, and after a while she didn’t paw at it as much. However, every so often she would still try to paw at it in the middle of the walk.
At first, it did seem to help with redirecting her attention when she started to pull, bark, etc. The product does what it claims as far as allowing the dog to open its mouth, pant, drink, etc. when the Halti is on. When a correction is given, the loop closes, and redirects their attention.
After a couple weeks or so, the Halti seemed to get less effective, and I think my dog figured out how to pull against the Halti. The directions did say this may happen, and had instructions on how to correct this problem. Unfortunately, I never quite got the hang of how to fix this problem.
At one point, we encountered a dog that was off leash without its owner, and my dog reacted by barking and pulling. After the loose dog left, I noticed the Halti had slipped off regardless of my taking a good amount of time to fit it. The only reason she was still on my the leash was because the Halti was attached to her collar with the safety strap. With all the fur my dog has, it is possible that the Halti still wasn’t tight enough.
Needless to say, I haven’t really used the Halti since then, and I have gone back to training/walking with her other collar. I didn’t feel as comfortable using the Halti for fear that my dog would actually break the Halti if she were to pull hard enough again. The straps seem a bit small, and and of the metal clasps/rings/etc. that attach to the leash or collar were also rather small. They held up after one pulling incident, but I wasn’t really wanting to take the risk of it breaking. Like I said, I have a 65 pound German Shepherd, and she is rather strong.
