Jake has developed a couple of fear reactions to specific situations. - We are carrying him up and down the stairs as he's sleeping with us. He'll come no problem to be carried upstairs, but will run away if we go to pick him up to go downstairs. I think he's scared of going down, I can understand this as he's high up. Treats aren't cutting it here, I cannot get him picked up if I am near the stairs. How do I make this less scary, and a good experience for him? - When we go to pick him up to pop him in the car he's now taken to running away. Treats work most of the time, but he seems to panic once picked up, I try and hold him securely, but the wiggling makes it hard. If he's on his lead he's backing up, and digging his heels in. He doesn't panic any other time I pick him up(except going downstairs), and once he's in the car he's been really good, no more whining, has started lying down quite quickly too. This escalated today coming out of pets at home. I took two steps out of the front door, and he dug his heels in and stopped. I couldn't get him moving at all, the car park was very busy with parked cars, there wasn't any moving, but he would not move towards me, or with me. I had a bag full of shopping too, he was ignoring the treats, and no amount of soothing talking from me helped. I literally had to drag him to the car, which I know wasn't the right thing to do, but couldn't pick him up, and just didn't know what to do with him. How should I have handled this? And how to work on this? Thank you.
I can understand you wanting to get him out there to experience the big wide world. He is only 14 weeks old and maybe a little to much for him yet. He needs to be taken places,but not shopping where you cannot pick him up. You are going to struggle until he is confident on the lead. Dragging him will not gain his confidence, only make him dig his feet in more. As for the stairs, put him on the lead and sit on the bottom step tempt him to climb on to the step and then off again, just make sure he does not jump off then go two steps up and back down. Try at the top by sitting on the top step and getting him to go one step down and back up, build his confidence. A pup needs to learn to walk up and down stairs, I stress walk. You will not be carrying him when 20 weeks old? We have a 12 week old pup, went to Tesco carpark walked her around for a few minutes with the aid of treats, met a few people and then back in the car. Will do it again this week, so not over face her.
Since we got him we've carried him lots of places, some busy, some not. He's been walking different places for a week now. He's been to Pets at Home since he was 8 weeks, at least 3 times a week. He's also walked in and out several times in the last week. He's been to Tesco, up the town during the week, and been to the forest. He's went everywhere with confidence, or for a tasty treat. Until today. The method you suggest for the stairs is what we're trying but I can't get him within 3 steps of the top, and I can't get him past stair one on the way up. Do we just persevere, and maybe try changing the treats until we find something that he try for?
We used to have a similar problem getting Ella into the car but we eventually realised that it was because the car tropical was making her feel sick. Once we moved her from the boot (SUV) to the back seat, she started walking up to the car again. Is it possible that Jake feels unwell in the car too? Also, I wonder if it's possible that Jake loves being upstairs with you so much that he doesn't want to go back down? Do you think picking him up, walking down a step or two then walking back up and staying upstairs for a while might work (i.e. trying to separate the activity of the stairs from the end of fun, upstairs time)? Is there anywhere else that you encounter stairs? It might be good to try at someone else's house to see if you can work out whether it's the stairs themselves or the fact that he wants to stay upstairs in your room.
It does sound to me like he is scared of walking down the stairs, and scared of getting into the car, yes. I've done the steps thing with Charlie. He fell off a set of steps when he was a puppy and it took me yonks to get him to walk up those steps. I tried everything. In the end I just had to take my time over it and reward first for a look in the direction of the steps, then tiny movement towards them, then a step. I got awfully stuck when I could get him to put his front paws on the step, but not his back. I then had to go train stuff that would involve him moving his back paws...it was a right old faff. It did work in the end though. I don't know of any other way to do it. Just piling treats on the steps didn't do it, no way I could just bribe Charlie to think the steps were a good thing, it had to be about his choice. There is a kikopup video here (the example is a kitchen floor in the video) but it makes me giggle how fast the progress is - it took just forever with Charlie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-CCJxF-9U4 I also tried a similar thing with his harness that he hated. I got him to accept having it put on (as in he would stop legging it whenever anyone picked up his harness) but I never got him to love it, unfortunately.
Emily I did think he was scared of the car, he is in the back seat with a harness and attachment on. He used to whine an awful lot when he went anywhere, but the last week and a half he's only whine a couple of times, so I thought we'd made progress. I wonder if he's more resigned to the fact he's in the car, rather than happy with it? I may need to go back a few steps, popping him in and out without going anywhere, treating in the back seat etc. When we're bringing him downstairs, it's because we're going downstairs too, he sleeps all night with us, so not sure about that, unless he want to stay in bed JulieT Great video, she makes it look very simple. I can get his front paws on the first step, but like Charlie no back feet. I can apply that to the car too, and see how we get on. Why did I get a puppy coming into winter, it's a good frost out there today
I often think dogs form negative associations with things for reasons that might be too tiny for us to notice, and then it sort of builds - because our reactions make it worse (even with the best intentions) and just because that's the sort of nature of it - I think X is scary, I'm scared, therefore I'm right to think X is scary.... It always takes me ages to get Charlie over stuff like this. Not that I've had to do much, just the garden steps, the harness and a few things when he had an attack of being nervous of random things in the street after his second cruciate op (he has never quite returned to the level of confidence he once had, but since he was dreadfully over confident to start with, that doesn't matter much ). Good luck with it.
IMO think that we can make it worse for a pup, by reacting to a situation they have a problem with. Sometimes it is best to ignore them, they will figure it out for themselves. We also put pressure on them too soon. Having had many pups over the years, some learn much quicker than others. A bit like humans LOL. I agree winter is not the time for a pup, luckily Kira has been very good at toileting, so we have had not to spend much time outside.
Jake's been even better today, there's a good layer of frost, so he's out and straight back in, no sniffing about or lying down outside today
