Lurcher suddenly whirls like a dervish on the lead

[Goodresolutions]

This has happened a few times recently. It comes out of the blue when she's sniffing in the grass. She's strong and for the moments it lasts it's hard to control her.

She's a manic sniffer anyway, which I'm working on. Pavement walks are much improved but on grass it's still difficult. She's a rescue, around four years old.

During lockdown she's been getting 1.5-2 hours of lead walks a day but I wasn't able to take her to the safe field for a run. I'll go back as soon as the weather cools down.

Do you think the freaking out will stop when she gets a good run regularly again?

My older lurcher used to do this when he was super excited, and the only way through it was to stand still and do nothing exciting at all until he stopped. Then I'd make him sit, and then walk on. If there was something I thought would be exciting, it would be short lead and soothing words of praise and then it got better with time.
Is she on a harness or martingale collar?

She's on a harness, Perfect Fit. I bought her a Martingale collar but she pulled dreadfully when I got her and walks better with the harness.

I've had lurchers before and never needed a harness, and I've never had this behaviour before. She pants with excitement for a few moments after the incident but calms down quickly then we walk on.

Someone witnessed it today and thought she's been stung. That's what it looks like.

I'm also hoping things will get better with time. I've had her about nine months now and she's a lovely dog but is a work in progress!

With my salukish boy it is just overexuberance. He was particularly bad if we were going out running as he just loves it so much and had lots of energy at the beginning

Thanks for replying. Once she's running off the energy again I'm hoping it will improve.

It's just exuberance. She's got a scent of something and for whatever reason it's engaged silly mode, and she's got the urge to run. She can't, because she's restrained, so it comes out like this.

They have such good acceleration and it's that which makes them so strong in a harness; you might well find it easier to control her in a martingale (properly adjusted) at those moments but if she walks better the rest of the time in a harness, it's a bit of a trade-off.

Once she's able to run free again you should find she settles more (although she may still have her moments!).

Not too many moments I hope!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=tGep11hxCFo

Zoomies!!

Video is of a greyhound but similar. One of mine does zoomies the other doesn’t.

Exactly like the twirling round in circles at the start of the video but on the lead.

I'm used to a few minutes of zoomies in the house, hurtling from one room to another.

Anyway, we'll be back to the field as often as we can now, so she can run off her energy there.

Thanks for the reassurance.