Winston and cars
He goes completely ballistic! Barks, jumps, lunges toward the car. If I pulled him off balance during a jump (he is on an easy-walker collar/harness) he would bounce right back up and continue. If I tried to hold him down he would squirm and fight to get loose, ignoring me with total concentration on the car. My wife has tried everything; take him far off the road when a car approaches, distract him verbally, distract him with food, nothing works. We are afraid he will manage to get the leash lose or pop off the collar and get hit. If we don't figure it out soon his neighborhood walking days are over. So much for any idea of walking on a town square with him! |
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| I walk with Bond on our walks for exercise about 3 times/week - out on our gravel roads. Bond is the 1st dog I have that reacts to the cars and farm equipment when they go by. And they are noisy, as they are gravel roads. If I let him, he would no doubt have progressed to the out of control behavior you are seeing. What is working is using his leave it command. He knows it really well - in fact at class now when I use him as my demo dog to show how to get them to leave a bag of treats on the floor - he avoids, averts his head and pushes in close to me to get away from it. So I know he really, really knows it. (And we do this with praise, play, hugs and positive words - no treats). At first he wasn't convinced this should apply to cars.  But for the very 1st time, he did it perfectly on our walk last Thursday. The pickup drove by, and he stayed at my side with a LOOSE lead...for the approach, pass, and leaving of the truck! We stopped and had a party!! I know at 10 months he is going to have lapses. but we reached that huge landmark where he was 100% successful and got rewarded. It's going to work! I would work him at a distance 1st - avoid that threshold where he is totally not listening and in his own world. Too bad it has progressed this far, but with work you can still work through this. |
| Good advice Dawn. With Simon, he started with cars. Took me by surprise one day and almost pulled us in front of a car. He's better with that now but he's moved onto bikes and motorcycles  Its taken a long time and tons of work but he's getting better with bikes(since there are a lot of them around now). I make him sit and stand in front of him and tell him to leave it. He tries to look around me but I hold his head or just keep moving so he can't see it. He's getting better but I don't think he will ever be "over" it.Model dog Garfunkel  doesn't give a hoot. |
| Dexter doesn't care at all about cars. When he first started walking he was a little leary of them but now doesn't miss a beat. He does act like he's a little put out by Winston's behavior. We have tried a lot the first thing with anything is getting his attention which is about impossible. Tomorrow we are going to take turns with him in the front of the house with one of us driving back and forth. He understands leave it to include food dropped in the kitchen and treats on the floor for training, we'll expand the meaning. |
| lola has started to notice cars and tries to lunge....ive found that if i walk her GOING with the traffic flow, she is better...it is walking against the traffic that she tries to lunge....try that if you can |
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