Hi, 15 months lab female. she have joint Problem for thats why i give her walk without leash like other dogs(some pets also play there) her Behaviour is so Immature, she licks everyone and try to go to other unknown people, they get scared from her, some time that made a big issue, one person started fighting with me that i shouldnt allow her to walk without leash, the problem is she doesnt walk with leash, she pulls and get irritate with it, she walk with her own way, unlike other dogs there, they walk with their owner even without leash, thats my dream.. they never see other people.. i remember that day, when a person with his kid was walking, my pet saw her, she ran and try to play with this child, but child got scared and ran away, her father scolded me, i got ashamed because thats my fault too.. if i keep her with leash, she never walks with me, i dont want to pull her because it will put force on her legs.. what should i do, please help me..
She sounds like a very normal Labrador to me, given the chance every Labrador I know will want to go and say hello to strangers at some point in their lives. The answer is to train her to walk on the leash, this will take time. You will need to be very patient and consistent. Make walking on the leash fun. Here is an article by Pippa that will really help you. http://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-stop-your-labrador-pulling-on-the-lead/ Some children are scared of dogs, which is a fact of life, you need to have a plan in place for when your girl sees a child. My girl is 18 months old and for a while she would bark when she saw children she really didn't like them. I have managed to over come this problem to a certain extent by giving her a treat every time she didn't react. The difference being that Mabel is on the lead around children.
Any dog that is off lead needs a reliable recall away from people and other dogs, and also needs to learn to stay with you and not go running up to them in the first place. If you have the freedom to allow your dog off lead, that's wonderful, but you have to train her not to approach people or other dogs - or anything that might harm her. You do have to be able to put her on her lead at times, no dog is perfect and being able to walk your dog on lead when you really need to do so, is a basic safety thing. So, you need to get busy with the training. Lead walking, recall, and don't run over to other people and dogs. Lots of articles on the site to help you with this.
We had real difficulties with lead walking our girl and had to put real time and effort into getting it fixed. Here's what we did: Build the bond between you by hand feeding your dog (if you use kibble). Save most of her food for walks so you can pretty much constantly be rewarding any good behaviour. Start waking on the lead more often. We did three half hour walks a day on the lead. Vary them as much as possible. Follow piPad advice re training. Stop the second she pulls and wait for her to return to you. It can take some time so be patient. And be consistent. i would avoid parks etc as she will be so distracted by people and kids and wanting to play it will make it even harder. Buy a front flip harness (for use just while you are training)- it makes it very difficult for them to pull. We did this for about 5 weeks and now she is much better. I hardly have to hold the lead now. She still walks in front of me which some people don't like but to be honest, so long as my arm is in its socket I'm happy I agree with Julie re recall if you want your pooch off lead. But that is a whole post unto itself. Good luck with it all
Hi there, You might find these articles helpful too: Train A Puppy Or Dog To Come Pushy Labradors Best of luck with her training.
