Waffle hates walks.
I got Waffle when he was 10 months old from a breeder who is fantastic in all aspects except for socialization. When I got him, I will admit I didn’t walk him very much. What I did instead was take him to the beach, take him to someone’s house, play with him in the house, take him into the backyard and play soccer, or play hide-and-seek, train him, teach him tricks, etc to keep him stimulated/exercised/exhausted. I take him hiking at least once a week for at least 4 miles, climbing rocks, crossing streams, navigating dangerous terrain, avoiding bears, etc. Obviously all of these activities are very stimulating and he has had little exposure to the leisurely neighborhood walk.
I’ve tried biking with him before but he hates it. He’s very capable of following my bike at a good speed for a good distance but he just doesn’t want to. The first time we biked, he ran a whole speedy mile with me before slowing down. His enthusiasm for the activity waned quickly. When we’re walking to the place where we bike—a high school track—he plants his feet in the ground and I have to practically drag him the whole way. Needless to say, we don’t bike anymore. I suppose running on a track isn’t very stimulating more than once.
Now, I wanted to get into walking him twice a day. When we get started on our walk, he plants his feet and keeps looking in the direction of our apartment—exactly what he did when he didn’t want to bike. I tell him to “come on” and tug on his leash a bit to get him moving forward, and he’ll go about 3m before planting his feet again and looking back. If I stand still and tell him to go where he wants, without fail, he will head back to our front door. Once we reach the halfway point of the walk, he is walking great—presumably because the latter half is more interesting and because he knows it’s shorter to keep going forward than it is to turn around. After 3-4 days of complete inactivity (I’ve been sick a lot) he is eager and even excited by the prospect of a walk, but the next day he is back to refusing.
He eats a whole prey model raw diet and has consistently for almost a year. He’s been to the vet to get his skeleton checked out and everything is great except for an extra chunky L7 and S vertebrae, which caused some limping after our most difficult hikes, but has been managed with diet/supplements and medication [Deramaxx 25 mg] which is administered only before very strenuous hikes. There is no reason for me or my vet to believe his mild condition causes pain on something as simple as a walk when everything else he does is orders of magnitude more intense and he performs without hesitation or signs of soreness afterward.
Is it possible he is just super bored with normal walks around the neighborhood to the point where he’d rather stay home? Does that happen? I think this is part of the issue, though not necessarily all of it.
He does have a fear issue with other dogs. He has NO confidence meeting new dogs and he reacts very fearfully to them, which is an issue I have been trying to address but may not be doing very well at. Whenever he sees a dog, I give him treats. This worked for a little, but now he is so focused on the other dog (often 10-20m in the distance) that he refuses to pay attention to me. I suppose I have accidentally been rewarding him for being dog-focused (instead of making the dog=good! association) and now I don’t know how to fix it. Would anxiety of seeing/meeting a dog cause him to want to avoid a walk? How can I reduce that anxiety since obviously what I’m doing isn’t working? It’s worth mentioning that his distaste for walks has persisted since before he grew so fearful about meeting new dogs. He was attacked by an off-leash pit a while ago which really escalated both his distaste of walking and his dog fear.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rachael & Waffle on
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Yup, workin' on it, but I still need to exercise him whether he knows "watch me" or not. :[
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Permalink Reply by GPN on
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This is a leash training problem, not a question of whether the dog is bored or whatever. The dog's job is to be with you wherever and whenever you want him to be.
My puppy was VERY leash resistant so I guess I'll do a separate post.
Greg
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Permalink Reply by Jane on
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Does he enjoy working? You could try taking a treat pouch and turning it into more of a training session than a walk. Have you ever looked into rally? It has some good exercises that might spice things up if he's feeling bored on a regular walk. About turns, 360s, stopping, running, walking slow, fronts, etc. Honestly though if my dogs stop I just keep walking and drag their butts haha.
And I second Ludi's excellent advice for the other dogs. That's what I did with Luke as well and it has been quite effective.
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I have thought about doing Rally, yes! I think I will give the training session thing a try, too. The clicker is his favorite thing in the world.
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I just posted a very detailed post on how I stopped the leash lagging in my BLOG section. I think the blogs stay more accessible than the responses to posts...
Greg N
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I'll check it out!
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I'm not really sure this is the same type of issue as teaching a reluctant puppy to walk on a leash tbh, although a good heel is always nice to have. I'm sure Waffle knows exactly what you want, he just has other ideas in mind lol.
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The woman in the video trained older dogs...a good meal gets the attention of any dog. G.
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Waffle actually refuses to eat outside. He's even turning down treats when he thinks he sees a dog!
He walks wonderfully on a leash at all other times. :]
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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on
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Rachael, it seems Waffle is well adjusted and functions well in every aspect of your life except for these neighborhood walks where he is afraid of meeting other dogs, and you say he was attacked, so we know he has a reason for his fear. It's tricky to work with fear, because you can actually make it worse through well intended means. If he will not even take a treat outside, his level of fear is very high and, personally, I would not push it. What I would do, is accept it and from that place of acceptance and understanding, I would try to see what he is willing to accept with a small level of anxiety ( maybe just sitting with you outside the front door ) and keep the exposure at that level and no more, until there is no anxiety at all in that situation, at which point I would find the next level where his anxiety is mild.... so on and so forth. You cannot have a timetable, his behavior (anxiety level) has to dictate the timetable. There are biochemical reactions triggered by fear that you cannot change once started and so, if you bring on the full fledged fear, you reinforce it big time, every time. He needs to know you are not trying to force him into something he cannot handle.
There are people who have the same problem and are terrified of meeting a dog when walking. They usually have been bitten as a child. They have to cross the street to the sidewalk on the other side, if they see a dog approaching at a distance....
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Permalink Reply by Lori A. Haskett on
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I can't wait to share your posting with my husband...finally someone else has walking issues. We have Callie who is four. She will play fetch literally until I DROP! but will not go on walks without an ordeal! We live on a 10 acre hay field which is awesome to walk but not as far as Callie is concerned! We walk out the back of our house and as soon as she realizes it's to walk and not play fetch...she digs her feet in and won't budge with this really stubborn look on her face. If I can get her to take a few steps she will turn around to go back home or sit and face the house. I even go so far as to carry her until I can't carry her any further...if I carry her so far then sit her down it's like she finally will give in and walk then seems to be resigned to walking will seem even to have a good time. Other times if I get fed up and just leave her sitting she will sit and watch us go all the way around the 10 acre field and wait on us to get back to her. So there you have it the same foot planting and refusal to walk...
Then we have Cooper on the other hand at 2 who loves to walk and run but when it comes to other dogs look out...I describe him as fearful aggression. I really don't know if that's the right term but he loves to see other dogs, barks gets excited etc. Plays wonderfully with his sister Callie and gets along with my mom's 2 dogs. If any another dogs get near him he gets so scared that he curls his lips up and just gets what I call his ugly face. As far as I know he's never been hurt or had any bad experiences with any dogs...Talk about two totally different dogs and issues sometimes I just get at my wits end trying to figure out where I went wrong! Not sure how to get past these issues either...
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So, after I got a handle on all this info and made a plan, Waffle is already doing much better. Today was the best walk we've had in a long time.
I worked on "Eyes" (ie "watch me") at home and he was ready to bring it outside in just a day, in typical Waffle fashion. I upped the ante on the treats--Charlee Bears certainly weren't cutting it and neither were his cookies or beef jerky. So I sacrificed a leftover pork chop--seasoned to sweet perfection. When we saw a dog on his walk, I would wait for his ears to go forward in preparation for his crazy freak out, then say "Eyes", wait till he even sort of looked in my direction, and then clicked and treated. We then moved to the side and I held his attention with "Eyes" while the dog passed. We also did this in front of the fence where he freaks out every day because there are some crazy dogs there about 10% of the time. Two days of this sort of work prepared him for today.
We took a different route than usual so his foot-planting lasted about the time it takes to get out of the neighborhood. I've been that way once before but there were some wandering dogs that made me nervous--there weren't any this time though. We passed the fence with nothing more than forward ears and a very slight growl. We walked down the road where the pitbull that attacked him lives--he was visibly hesitant to go that way but we pulled through with some "Eyes" and porkchop pieces. Then we ended up in the park that we usually go to and he looked relieved to be in a familiar setting. When we passed by a black lab, he looked right at me without me giving the command. Yess. We finished the walk and he seemed pretty pleased. I was beaming! Waffle is the best.
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