Hi everyone! I have a 4 month old Golden Retriever/Lab named Molson who's doing excellent with his training. He can go pretty far on walks and still has energy after. My only issue is he's not a big fan of the leash...at least that's what I think lol. It doesn't matter if myself or my husband take him for a walk, or if we go together at some point during the walk (usually the beginning) Molson decides he doesn't want to walk and tries to jump at us and tries to bite our clothes, like he wants to play. If we ignore the bad behavior he does stop eventually (it doesn't last too long, maybe 5-10 minutes). I'm wondering if anyone else has/is experiencing this and what they are doing to curb the bad behavior, or if they grow out of it and just start to enjoy going for a walk from start to finish. Thanks so much for any help you can provide!
I am not sure how from your description his behaviour suggests he does not like the lead. I suspect you have noticed he is trying to bite the lead when he jumps up. If so, you can try a number of things. We humans find walks interesting. Dogs want to sniff and explore the world rather than marching to some destination. What are you doing to make the walk interesting to the dog? Perhaps scattering some treats on the ground for him to find would be useful. Second, try to direct him onto something else rather than biting the lead. Cue him to do something like down, sit, spin, sit-by-my side, and so on on and so on. Then reward the behaviour you have cued when your dog complies. Try to keep changing the alternative behaviour you cue the dog. You want to avoid creating a pattern that biting the lead is always followed by say sit and then a treat. Otherwise the dog will bite the lead, then sit waiting for the treat.
He doesn't try to bite the leash when he jumps he tries to bite our shirts, like he wants to play. This behaviour only lasts a couple of minutes until he realizes he's not going to get his way and then continues on his way on the walk exploring and stopping to smell new things. We do try to bring treats on the walks to reward him for walking good. For the most part he does, it just for one small section of our walk where he decides he does not want to listen and tries to take control (I guess that's how I would describe it)
Okay. Can you precisely explain what you two do when he tries to bite your shirts? What reward is he getting from this behaviour? And have you been able to work out what triggers the undesirable behaviour? Although the above questions may not have clear answers, my suggested solution applies, just replace shirt for the lead.
We always make him sit until he calms down a bit, sometimes it takes a couple tries but then he gets it and is happy to be going on a walk. I have found if we play with him right before we go and he's very high energy the jumping is worse, so we try to avoid playing if we know we are going to go for a walk within the next half hour or so. Like I said the behaviour doesn't last long, just for a few minutes until he realizes he doesn't get decide what we are doing and continues on the walk and really enjoys himself.
