Hi everyone. I have a 14 week old Pembroke puppy who is generally pretty good on her walks. Once she gets going she trots dutifully behind me with minimal sniffing breaks and distractions. The catch is the "once she gets going" part. When we are in sight of the apartment she tends to park her little corgi butt on the concrete and stare at me, or wander off and start sniffing. I can get her moving by offering treats or picking her up and moving a few feet, but it takes about 10 minutes to get her moving consistently, which cuts into her exercise time before I have to go to work.

Is this just natural behavior, or does anyone have any suggestions to get her going a little faster?

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i'm not sure, and definitely defer to those with more experience, but giving treats just to get going may not be the best bet? in case she thinks, 'oh if i sit here long enough i'll get treats!' and kind of learns that she's "trained you" to do that for her?

i'm not sure yet how to make walks more exciting for a pup, but hopefully will have more insight soon.

Corgis seem to be big feet-planters compared to other dogs.... LOL Not sure why but both of mine will sometimes plant their feet and not move, one regularly and one rarely. Usually it's when either we have left someone (my husband, one of the dogs) behind, OR in the case of my male when he wants to go a different way.

I would just kind of keep walking and make her go. Someone gave me the tip of holding the leash in your right hand if the dog is on the left, and letting the slack fall across the front of your thighs so when you walk the motion of your legs just bump-bump-bumps the dog and forces it to move.

My 26 week (5month-ish) old Momo don't want to leave someone behind on walks or another room.  He reallly loves to make sure the family is IN ONE ROOM together or if we're on walks, he wants us all together, so we can "walk" togehter, and he wants to make sure to WALK BETWEEN the both of us.  LOL.

I just think,... of my puppy as a family organizing oriented puppy.

We were visiting my parents when Gwenny was around 9 weeks.  My mom tried to get up and go to the kitchen.  Gwenny immediately herded her back to the living room.

I also just keep walking, they don't drag for long. At 14 weeks, make sure you don't walk too far and sometimes go where she wants to go. Babies have short attention spans and a natural desire to stay close to home.

Kaylee was like this. That's why we call her tumbler passive-aggressive flop ^_^ The only thing that got her moving was excitement and someone running ahead of us. I would try everything to make her come along for the walk, including treats. I would suggest using a harness if you drag, dragging and collars could really hurt them. IMO

I went through this with Chuckie.  Actually, he was worse.  He wouldn't walk at ALL when I got him at 10 weeks.  He didn't care if I dragged him, he didn't care if I walked on with him dragging behind me.  He wouldn't walk if he didn't want to.  I tried treats to get him going, tried being happy and excited to get him going, I tried patting him on the butt to get him moving, nothing worked! 

Finally, I just said you know what we shall do what YOU want!  So, I just clipped on a long training leash and hold one end while he just did what he wanted on the other end.  Basically, everything was so new and scary to him that all HE wanted to do was sniff everything to become familiar with it and then move on to a new patch.  So, in the end that's how he learned to walk on the leash, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, and then move on to new patches of land with me holding the leash. To Chuckie, everything centers around his nose.  He has to smell it and become familiar with it to be comfortable around it.

Eventually, as he became more accustomed to his surroundings and his new home he was more willing to walk and explore further.  So, once he was familiar with our side of the street we would cross the street to the other side and let him get familiar with the smells there.  That's when the walks started happening because he was willing to go to places he was familiar with.  That's how we built his walking, just slowly allowing him to get comfortable with an area and then walk further to smell a new area.   It did take a while for me though but, that's just how Chuckie was.  He's a cautious dog and submissive by nature and needs to approach new things/environments at his pace not mine.  If I rushed him he shut down by planting his butt on the ground and not moving.

Now, he's a happy dog who enjoys his walks. 

Well done Mai! Your being so in tune with your pup and his needs, rather than just having an agenda, won the day for you both. What pups need is exposure and good experiences to build self confidence as well as trust in their human friend.  Your method accomplished both.

Mai raises a good point that for younger puppies, they should have plenty of time to wander and explore at their own pace and minimal time with structured walks.

I know there are downsides, but we used an extenda-lead on Jack til he was about 4 or 5 months old so that he could wander more on his own and explore his world. Then when his attention span grew we started practicing walking properly.

I think corgis have a natural predisposition for being stroppy little turds on walks in their youth. Ace also plonked himself down and refused to let up when he was around 16 weeks. All I can say, since the others have mentioned good ideas, is that it does eventually get better so hang in there and TRY your best to not let your frustration show! I know it's nearly impossible since it's pretty infuriating to have an 8 kilogram ball of reluctance at the end of the leash, but eventually they realise that walking and moving are two great activities! And then you can't stop them. :-D

I just think your puppy wants to spend more time OUTSIDE and knows that when you guys go back INTO the apartment, she knows ur gonna leave  her or lock her up in a crate or bathroom, or where ever she is when ur gone. 

But as a trainer told me before, if you stop, and ur puppy sits down and doesn't want to move, it may be OVERLY worked out. 
So maybe shorten your walk / excerise for her until she's older.  I started my puppy out at learning to walk nicely in the aparment, then 10 mins outside walk, 15 min walk, 20 min walk, now... we're about 25-30 min walk at 26 weeks (5 months). 
Just building up her confidence with walking AWAY from the home and treats are a good way to lure her into watch u for attention / direction.  

I used treats for MOMO when we first started training him to go for walks, and randomly dropped treats for him when he's walking nicely and that made sure he paid attention to me, instead of going against me... and he knew if he was good boy, he'd get a treat. 

As my dog trainer said, use the TOP SHELF TREATS for training IMPORTANT tricks or behaviors you want him to be using. 

Good luck! 

She's pretty much never alone.  My girlfriend gets to take her to work.  Lucky!

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