Hi everyone I'm new to the forum, and am looking for some advice. As a family we own a 17 month old chocolate lab. She is absolutely crazy (no doubt about that) and is a typical chocolate lab (she chews things, loves tennis balls, shows affection towards people and other animals, gets overly excited, and recently seem to have found her voice) She's such a character which we absolutely love and adore, no question. Her craziness fits right in. However she doesn't enjoy going for walks.. Well, I say she doesn't enjoy, once we have managed to peel her off the floor and couched her outside she's fine and seems to really enjoy herself, she loves to explore new things and if we go for a walk around the neighbourhood block she picks up sticks holds them careful in her mouth before dropping them for the next. It's almost like a little one dog relay with sticks, the next day she'll carry the stick stroll towards our house. So she makes her own entertainment as we go along on the lead. We also take her for longer walks across fields where she is put on an extendable lead or allowed off completely, we do some recall training in these situations and 99.8% of the time we have some treats in our pocket. So you would think she would be itching to get out of the house. Our old dog (a collie cross) would go to and sit by the cupboard with her lead in or by the front door when ever she wanted to go out, she would even nudge you and give this pleading look. However this is not at all like our current lab. If you go to the cupboard to get the lead out she will run away somewhere in the house and lay down making it difficult to put on her harness. She has a double ended lead which clips onto both her collar and her harness, as she pulls a lot and is very strong! Especially when other dogs, people, cats even birds are near. Once her lead/harness is on she stays laying down to the point we're encouraging her out the door in any way possible. She has had 3/4 different types of harnesses/leads etc and none of them made a difference. She also learnt in her last one that if she wiggled backwards she could slip out, which wasnt ideal when out walking and this was recently replaced. We all find it very strange a dog to be so reluctant to go for walks, and its not like we dont make them interesting, she goes in the car for walks across fields, woods, canels, etc she recently went on her first holiday where she went on loads of amazing walks, by lakes, across beaches, etc and yet she continues to stand her ground on setting foot outside tge house. Myself and my mother haven't known a dog like it. Any advice would be truly grateful. Many Thanks, Ali
I agree with @SwampDonkey. It sounds very much like it's the harness she's averse to, rather than the walks. Is there anywhere you can drive to and let her straight out without her being on lead, so she doesn't need the harness, and then you can concentrate on training loose lead walking on a flat collar?
It’s possibly this. My 9 month old puppy from an early age ran off as soon as the harness came out (she has a Perfect Fit one and it does fit perfectly!). We rarely use the harness now but when she sees her lead or knows it’s walk time, she will ‘disappear’ somewhere downstairs and it sometimes takes the two of us to ‘round’ her up. Once out the door she is absolutely fine and loves her walks. We don’t make a thing of it as it almost seems like it’s a learned behaviour so not worthy of any attention. If she does stand still to have her lead on, I treat her. We also make a quiet fuss of the older dog who willingly has her lead put on.
