I am impressed at how well she's doing but the pulling when I want her by my side is very important to me. She's going to be the biggest dog I've ever had and pulling just will not do. I know she's young but she's already 55 pounds and I don't want her thinking its okay to pull mom everytime she wants to go say hi to someone and believe me, she wants to tell everyone hello!
What a good girl!!! That's awesome that she's already doing so well and got to skip the first class. Not many pups (or any) can do that. We ran into the same sorts of things with Moose. Newfs are just so smart that my trainer looked at me one day and said, "you know, sometimes we teach him advanced stuff because we run out of 'jobs' since he aces everything we give him...and I have to keep reminding myself he's just an 8 month old puppy!"
It's your call what you do with pulling...do some testing and research what works best for you. Personally we've been huge fans of the pinch collar (but you have to research or have someone show you how to fit the dog correctly, otherwise you could be causing a big issue and it could hurt the dog or be ineffective). I put it on my leg and jerked it and it doesn't hurt, and Moose has never reacted poorly to it. We gave it a try when the only training lesson Moose couldn't grasp was that he had to stay by me at ALL TIMES, even if someone walked past with another dog, or cute kids were making googly eyes at him. He was 7 months old and 100 pounds at that time and I wish we would have tried it much sooner! Honestly I've only had to "correct" him a few times with it, and now he knows when that goes on, he needs to be on his best behavior. Most on here call it "power steering" for dogs.
If you don't want to try that, something else you could do is take her in a field or large open area and walk briskly in different directions. Give the leash a gentle tug when you turn, and after five minutes or so, she'll be doing ANYTHING to stay by your side because she'll realize that if she doesn't want to be tugged, then she just has to outsmart you by going in the same direction. It also helps solidify the "heel" command. Then when you're out in public and she tries dragging you somewhere, turn around and walk the other way. She'll realize that she has to behave on the leash in order to get the reward of saying hi to the dog/person. Just my 2 cents on what has worked for us, but you'll find your own way and she'll help you
Good luck, sounds like you're on the right path and she's doing excellent for her age!! She's just the cutest little thing.
