Dog NOT walking from our front door - only if driven in car!! Is this a good approach?

[loveyouradvice]

Well, the wee fella has decided NOT to walk from our front door down the street on a lead.... if we take him out the front he will run keenly to sit beside our car, but be positively disgruntled if we put a lead on him and try to walk down the road.... digging his heels in and literally refusing. He's a wee titch so we can physically carry him - or drag him (No!!).

Even if I carry him part way down the street, he then refuses to walk alongside me towards the park.... but happily skips along beside me if I turn homewards.

He's 5 years old in case any one is wondering and used to walk down the street on a lead. Then he met a fierce cat so would only walk on the opposite side of the road or in the other direction. Now NOTHING from our front door - but happy to walk down other streets on a lead.

What would you do?

I'm thinking one approach might be linking it to the park... driving part way and walking down the last bit of our street to the park? And keep extending the distance until he finds himself starting at our front door?

Doesn't really help for walking in the opposite direction..... hmm....

There was a new episode of dogs behaving badly last week (channel 5 I believe) and there was a dog on there who refused to walk. Might be worth a watch?

Is he food motivated?

Hansel and Gretel a treat trail, with lots of praise?

Personally I would go in the car or carry him to a place that he is happy to walk from.. Choose your battles and all that.....

they are funny creatures aren't they

is it the cat that's the issue do you think? how did you deal with it when he came across fierce cat - did you pick him up?

What did you do when he saw the cat?

Mine had a particular house on another street where he'd refuse to walk past it if we walked in one direction, but was absolutely fine going the other way 🤷‍♀️

Do you have a back door / garden gate so you could walk him out the house via a different route? I'm lucky and have a gate that leads onto a back alley, so could completely avoid the front if necessary.

What does he do if the car is parked elsewhere - not on your driveway?

Not sure why people are asking what you did when your dog saw the cat.If your dog was scared it was the right thing to do to pick up the dog.

This is another myth that small dogs should not be picked up when worried - it is exaclty the right thing to do and give the dogs confidence.

I was only asking to gauge the level of fear in the dog - generally if I've picked up the dog it's because he's under attack/hurt/in some sort of horrible state of panic

Because if the dog was picked up last time, he may be expecting it again this time around.

When he saw the cat, he pretended to ignore it ... I was silently laughing inside but happy to go along with his charade.... carefully walking diagonally away from it, looking in the other direction....

Sadly no back gate!

Other ideas welcome but suspect we'll just keep driving him... and I'll try him on some more pavement walks elsewhere as we've rather lost touch with doing that in Covid times

Personally, I would try seperating walking from your front door with going for a walk - for now.

So I would keep driving him for his walks - so that they can continue to be fun and stress free for him. But I would also spend some time working up to a walk from the front door, thinking of it as an activity than anything to do with going for a walk.

So, start with a level he is 100% ok with and slowly build up.

e.g. First session: clip the lead on, take a step towards the front door, treat and then unclip and end session.

If he gets to a point of being ok/enjoying this then step it up a gear

e.g. Clip lead on, walk right up to the door, treat, unclip, end.

Then as above but a step oytside the front door, back in, treat and end.

And so on. My guess would be that at some point you all are going to feel comfortable just heading out for a short walk.

I think there are two reasons why I would not be totally comfortable with just accepting he needed to be driven forver from now:

1. Who knows what might change that makes that not an option. Better tackle it now than if/when it becomes an issue.

1. Fears can generlise (i.e. get applied to a wider and wider criteria) and your comment regarding the cat make me wonder if this might be happening already. I'd want to try and guard against this continuing.

Thanks Bachelor very sage advice ... definitely going to follow it ... once the weather lets up! In this cold muddy weather we are keener than him on walks... he looks as us as if he thinks we are joking!

Can someone with a dog your dog likes wait for you outside the house and you go together? Maybe with something incentivising like a squeaky ball or food? Keeping up with exercise by driving to walks the rest of the time though.

Good thinking - definitely would work with a friend and a dog... will wait til safer covid times as not really enough room at the mo!