Review of Premier Easy Walk Dog Harness

Rusty is an active but sensitive German Shepherd, who we adopted at age 3. He had rarely been walked on a leash prior to joining our family and the first few times I took him on a walk he was definitely the one walking me. (He's 68 lbs of pure German Shepherd muscle, I'm a small woman, barely over 100 lbs.) The first time we passed by a squirrel and he dragged me across a neighbor's yard in his excitement I realized I had to do something. Rusty is a very active dog who LOVES his two daily walks...so cutting back on walks was definitely not an option for us. So I went online and researched different types of harnesses and the Premier Easy Walk was the one I settled on. And oh my goodness - it was a life saver! With his harness on Rusty's pulling almost immediately stopped and when he is distracted by say a squirrel or a cat, I'm able to gently guide him to the correct behavior.

We did also try the Gentle Leader Head Harness which generally seems to get amazing reviews online. However, for us it worked about equally as well as the Easy Walk Harness to prevent pulling, but Rusty just didn't like it as well. He LOVES his Easy Walk Harness, at the first sight of it his tail wags uncontrollably and then on walks he doesn't even notice it's there. He was tolerant of the Gentle Leader (as he is a generally tolerant and obedient dog) but during walks he would periodically paw at it to try to get it off of his face. The product instructions say this is normal at first and dogs get used to it, but I guess I'm just a bit of an over-protective dog-mom and didn't like to take away even a little bit from his enjoyment of his walks...even temporarily. Maybe if the Gentle Leader had worked a lot better than the Easy Walk Harness.. but it didn't.

The one thing I will add is that for us neither harness has had any real effect on Rusty's reactive tendencies when he sees other dogs while out on walks (despite the fact that both products claim to help with that).

Luckily, through MUCH positive reinforcement training we've made a lot of progress at eliminating his leash-reactive behavior. And while we've worked his Easy Walk harness has definitely made it easier for me to lead him where I want/need him to go. And from what I've learned in my research about leash reactivity it is generally positive rewards based training that makes the most difference for leash reactive dogs, not any type of harness.

Overall, the Easy Walk Harness has made Rusty very manageable for me, as even when he wants to pull I'm able to gently stop him. And it's made our twice daily walks more enjoyable for both of us. I would highly recommend it to any family with a dog with a tendency to pull!

We have the black and silver Easy Walk Harness (pictured above), although when I went onto Amazon today I saw that they now make a reflective version (pictured to the right). I will definitely be buying this one next, as we frequently walk early in the morning and at night after dark due to my work schedule! Because of that, we're always in the market for good reflective products.