At 1 year old our teenager has made a 180 degree turn from being overexcited to lethargic on leash walks. We don't have many possibilities to let her off leash so most days the only exercise is leash walking. Couple of months ago she was a perfect companion on leash walks (after we tackled the leash zombies problem). Recently when we have paid more attention to passing interesting people/animals/smells she has started to slow down a lot. Sometimes she even sits down and waits for someone to show up. She keeps smelling a lot and when not, she waits for commands glancing at us nervously. When we don't give any (pass, leave, follow) she sometimes just tilts and sits down bewildered (or bored). We can get her moving sometimes by excited voices and running ourselves, or even carrying a stick she can hold. We are trying to be patient and understanding but it is very annoying on long walks because you have no idea how long it will take. Leash walking goes almost always very smoothly when we are in a forest, which is probably more inspiring for her. But to get to a forest we have to walk the boring roads for a mile. Giving treats and praise after walking relaxed beside me often disturbs the flow so I try to avoid it. She takes the follow command very well (for about 30-60 seconds max), but I try to use that only in crossings and other tricky situations when I cant let her sniff around. Any other experiences with this kind or teenage behaviour? Or does it have anything to do with the age? We have tried to give her more nice experiences (meeting other dogs and visiting people) so that the walks are not the only possibility for her to get out of the house. She really loves to meet other people and dogs and is very sociable.
It does sound like she is bored with her walks. Are you able to drive to better places to walk? Just out of interest when you get to the forest why is she still on the lead? When mine is off the lead he can stop and sniff to his hearts content but he knows he then has to run to catch up as I don’t stop to wait for him. Have a look at some classes you could go to to spark her interest like gundog training, scent training, agility.
I too have a feeling its boredom. Where we live it's illegal to set dogs free because it's birds' nesting time at the moment. We do try to take her a bit further from our neighbourhood couple of times a week to get at least a more stimulating environment with new scents. Hope this is enough for her.. Dog training classes have been on a break during the winter dut to covid, and we are focusing on basic obedience classes right now. During the summer there will hopefully be more dog activities, so will definitely look into nose work or something similar to spark her enthusiasm! Just being around other dogs stimulates her so we will try to give her more opportunities for that. So it appears that she is also suffering from covid boredom, bless.. What I'm really happy about is that she is very calm and loving as opposed to the wildness of the first months (jumping, biting, zooming). Looks like she goes from one extreme to another I prefer this version of hers, but of course I want her to enjoy being a silly dog every now and then!
