I hate running, with a passion, but every now and again, I need to get from A to B quickly - such as when a storm is rolling in fast and I'm exposed on the mountain. With Willow, I can run and she runs alongside me, but Shadow is another thing entirely. I'm not sure if it's excitement or stress (I'm inclined to believe the latter), but he immediately starts to jump up and nip at my clothing. By "immediately", I mean, within two paces. He does this whether I'm jogging very slowly or trying to run fast. I can walk very quickly without this behaviour, so it's obviously the change of gait he's responding to, rather than the speed - my slow jog can be slower than my fast walk. Because it's so immediate and constant, I'm having trouble marking him for not doing it; a run isn't really a run when it's only one foot being moved forwards! In other situations, I can jump around, do jumping jacks etc in front of him without him reacting. Maybe I could try running a couple of paces past/towards/away from him with him in a sit, but I'm not sure if that would then transfer onto when he's at heel. It's not a really massive deal, because it's such a rare occurrence for me to even consider running, but it's still something that I should look at resolving, nonetheless.
I'd say it's worth trying it with him in a sit first. It might help desensitise him to the movement. I bet it will still be tricky going from him still to him moving but I'd say it might help at least.
Does he do it both on and off lead? When OH and I were training for her Race for Life event we used to take Harv with us. Sometimes he would jump up when we started but after about 4-5 paces he stopped doing it and happily jogged along with us. (Never did decide whether the trigger was us starting to run or the voice on the training app that we were using though! )
Yup, both on and off lead. I'll give it a go with him sitting latter. Will be an added steadiness exercise, if nothing else!
I'm sure Debsie will be along in a bit as she does a lot of running with her two, and Brods used to jump up and grab her clothes and hold her arm while running. He doesn't now and I'm not absolutely sure what she did, but it definitely involved teaching a cue of "let's run" and I think she got him to carry his favourite ball initially to stop the nipping at clothes and arms. I'll nudge her to have a look at this thread.
Yes I had a Major Jumper in Brods when I started running. Very apt as his KC name is Lindaste Jumping Jupiter! Anyhow, he would leap at me and try and grab at my arm. I noticed that if he could just run holding my sleeve in his mouth, all the leaping stopped. Brods loves to carry things, and on walks if he is not off lead racing about he wants to carry something in his mouth. So I gave him a Special Running Ball, it is only used for running, I have built a command of Lets Run, and then he gets his running ball to hold. Problem solved! The Lets Run command really helped, but if I forget his running ball I have to find something random for him to hold or he will start leaping at my arm to carry that instead!
Thanks, Debsie, I'll give the ball a go and see how we get on. I'd ideally like to get it so he doesn't need to have something in his mouth (because running is always unplanned for me ) but it could be a good place to start, alongside the sit/stay when I'm running around.. Shadow isn't really fussed about carrying stuff in general, but he does love a ball.
I didn't get around to doing any of this tonight. It was chucking down with rain, so I had my brand shiny new waterproofs on. Not keen on getting that torn on its first outing
