puppies odd behaviour

[elmofan]

My 18 week old springer spaniel is normally a very confident dog but the minute we put his harness/lead on him he lays down & crawls under the table to hide . If we try to coax him out with treats he either ignores us or will kind of crawl out , eat the treat then run under the table again . He just becomes so sorry for himself & makes us feel terrible tbh . We try to leave it on him so as he gets used to it & forget he is wearing it iykwim but having no joy . He is actually whimpering in his bed ATM because i have put it on him :(
Any ideas as to how we can get past this would be great thanks .

So what happens next? Does he go for a walk? It sound like he has a bad association with it for some reason, but you need to tell us more.

Make sure you arn't trying to reassure him in any way 'don't worry, it's ok, it won't hurt you' as to a dog this is just praise and will make them repeat the behaviour.

Somewhere around happy and business like is good 'Daft dog it's just a harness shall we go for a walk?'

(very very hard to describe tone on a computer screen)

After we put it on we take him to the park , but he spends more time lying down in the grass than actually walking , Don't want to drag him so we usually up our tone to sound excited & one of us runs while the other encourages pup to follow iykwim lol .Then try coax him into walking . He has had no bad experiences that we know of & he came from down the country where he was allowed to run around freely all day long . He just gets so down in the dumps when he has the harness/lead on & the minute it comes off he is back to his normal happy self . Ive tried leaving it on during his meal times to try get him used to it . We do give him lots of affection & try to reassure him when he has it on so you have a good point there thanks will try the more positive approach . Thanks WTWTW

Do you use a clicker with him at all?

Never heard of a clicker tbh ? what/how does that work ? Do you think that might help ?
Thanks

It is a way of positively reinforcing desirable behaviour.

I would highly recomend it. There is a bit of an overview here

But you would need at least a book to learn how to do it properly, try Amazon, it would almost certainly help and is the most amazing way to train and communicate with your dog.

Thanks wtwtw , I have a good book "the complete dog training manual by Dr Bruce fogle" just haven't reached the clicker training part yet thanks for the link ill check that out now & pup is back at his puppy training class next week (he only had 2 sessions before they stopped for the summer holidays )
Thanks for all your advice .

Fab, read up on it and give it a go.

Will do .
He is absolutely adorable & it breaks our hearts to see him so miserable when his harness/lead goes on . Thanks again , that link looks brilliant & i have it saved to the pc so i can check back on it to make sure I'm doing it right .

Thanks