Hi guys, I have a beautiful 15 month old male Labrador (desexed a month ago). He went to puppy pre school. He hasn’t had much training on a lead, as we live about 8 houses away from a park, which we would leave him off lead to run and play with other dogs. With the Covid-19, there are no dogs around there now, so my dog started running up to people, which isn’t a good thing as a lot of people are scared of dogs and also due to safety reasons. I decided to start walking him on a lead instead and this has now proven to be very difficult, he is pulling on the lead (I have tried collar, body harness and face halter). The pulling is one thing, but what is much worse than this is that he has started barking at other dogs and people while on a walk. The other day I took him to a pet shop and he was barking at the other dogs there too. He is a good boy around the house (stays indoors with us), knows all the basic commands. But taking him out is very challenging and the last thing i want to do is stop taking him out. I have bad shoulders and the constant pulling is making them even worse and I really struggling with him barking at other dogs. I also carry high value treats, but when we are out, he’s not interested. I am not sure why he is barking and whether it is because he is frustrated and wants to play, or because he is anxious or being protective. Please help..
Really, this is the place to start - because until you address and fix this food motivation issue, you are pretty powerless to fix anything else. It's quite normal for a dog not to eat if they are over threshold or too close to a trigger, but if they are just not eating at all when out of the house, it suggests a food motivation problem... How do you feed your dog? How many times a day? Do you free-feed or leave food available all the time? Does he ever leave food in his bowl? What does he eat? How much does he weigh? Is he overweight?
