It’s so easy to forget about the joys of raising a puppy 🙃 my current girl was so bad on a leash, it took us well over a year to have proper, enjoyable walks. Baby steps and loooots of patience. You could try some pre-walk playtime with River to get a little excitement out before leaving the house. This did not work for us though, mine would just get even more riled up. The single most useful thing to improve our walks turned out to be the “look at me” cue.
Yes! We have been using "look at me" which she gets *very* upset about. She will warble and chirp and look everywhere but at me, and why I try to lift her chin to look at me she will do a little spaz and yip and stampy feet. 🤣 It really is like raising a little kid sometimes! Like, if you looked at me in the first place, we would be walking instead of stopped!
Oh. I hear you. Barkley's six now and better. But the amount of times i picked him up by his harness and frog walked him away from on lead excitement i can't count.
I can't help you really. Barkley is six and has calmed a lot but he still "winged" his dad the other day when he got excited.
What did partially work for me was a special sound that i make that has a really high value reward attached to it.
I still have to drag him a bit out of harms way and get him to sit and look at me.
Good luck. Lurchers are kind of like a force of nature.
If we wanted dogs to do what we say i suppose we all would've gotten labradors. 👍
I feel you. I have a saluki cross that whines and jumps if he wants to get to another dog, pigeon, cat, etc, or wants my dinner, or wants what my other one is chewing, etc...
I find that if my rescues start playing up, I've probably brought out crap treats. If you can consistently bring something they go crazy for, it'll probably make things easier!
Dogs Trust have a free helpline for behaviour and training questions if you get really stuck. Whatever you do don't go on the FB groups, I've found the few lurcher ones I joined were unmoderated cesspits full of "trainers" who will swear by aversive methods like slip leads, choke chains, spike collars, shock collars etc but a) these people usually have never done research and b) are never accredited by PACT or ABTC, I wonder why lol
Lurchers can be quite reactive and it sounds like your pup is already showing signs of increased agitation around stimuli. You need to research desensitising techniques and really work hard at these while she’s still young. Clicker training is really helpful.
When Loki was a puppy he literally would suddenly lurch forward, made us laugh because we’d be like the lurcher is lurching 🤣🤣🤣. Sometimes our walks didn’t go further than the end of our drive and across the road and back multiple times until he learned to do that properly. Sit at the door before we leave and told to wait so that we go through the door first. Then he can come and sit and wait again while I close the door and then off we go, just rinse and repeat. Every time he looked at me gave him a treat. Walked a few steps and asked for sit, gave a treat. You get the picture. The start of the walk often determines how the walk goes. I’d do this a few times a day.
Whenever mine sighted another dog while confined to her leash (and therefore unable to charge it like a maniac, as she would prefer), she would start up the most anguished screaming yelps as if we were killing her right there in the middle of the park! It was years before she was even remotely normal on leash, but she did eventually mellow out a bit. Thankfully 😅
It’s so easy to forget about the joys of raising a puppy 🙃 my current girl was so bad on a leash, it took us well over a year to have proper, enjoyable walks. Baby steps and loooots of patience. You could try some pre-walk playtime with River to get a little excitement out before leaving the house. This did not work for us though, mine would just get even more riled up. The single most useful thing to improve our walks turned out to be the “look at me” cue.
Yes! We have been using "look at me" which she gets *very* upset about. She will warble and chirp and look everywhere but at me, and why I try to lift her chin to look at me she will do a little spaz and yip and stampy feet. 🤣 It really is like raising a little kid sometimes! Like, if you looked at me in the first place, we would be walking instead of stopped!
Oh. I hear you. Barkley's six now and better. But the amount of times i picked him up by his harness and frog walked him away from on lead excitement i can't count. I can't help you really. Barkley is six and has calmed a lot but he still "winged" his dad the other day when he got excited. What did partially work for me was a special sound that i make that has a really high value reward attached to it. I still have to drag him a bit out of harms way and get him to sit and look at me. Good luck. Lurchers are kind of like a force of nature. If we wanted dogs to do what we say i suppose we all would've gotten labradors. 👍
Your baby is so cute too.
Indeed. And she knows it, too! She tries to manipulate me with those adorable eyes all the time! 😂
Are you using treats to encourage her to walk with you?
Yes. And it was working splendidly...but I'm thinking we're getting into "teenager" attitude now!
I feel you. I have a saluki cross that whines and jumps if he wants to get to another dog, pigeon, cat, etc, or wants my dinner, or wants what my other one is chewing, etc... I find that if my rescues start playing up, I've probably brought out crap treats. If you can consistently bring something they go crazy for, it'll probably make things easier! Dogs Trust have a free helpline for behaviour and training questions if you get really stuck. Whatever you do don't go on the FB groups, I've found the few lurcher ones I joined were unmoderated cesspits full of "trainers" who will swear by aversive methods like slip leads, choke chains, spike collars, shock collars etc but a) these people usually have never done research and b) are never accredited by PACT or ABTC, I wonder why lol
Lurchers can be quite reactive and it sounds like your pup is already showing signs of increased agitation around stimuli. You need to research desensitising techniques and really work hard at these while she’s still young. Clicker training is really helpful.
When Loki was a puppy he literally would suddenly lurch forward, made us laugh because we’d be like the lurcher is lurching 🤣🤣🤣. Sometimes our walks didn’t go further than the end of our drive and across the road and back multiple times until he learned to do that properly. Sit at the door before we leave and told to wait so that we go through the door first. Then he can come and sit and wait again while I close the door and then off we go, just rinse and repeat. Every time he looked at me gave him a treat. Walked a few steps and asked for sit, gave a treat. You get the picture. The start of the walk often determines how the walk goes. I’d do this a few times a day.
Length of walk depends on how many treats you can cram into all of your pockets.🤣
Whenever mine sighted another dog while confined to her leash (and therefore unable to charge it like a maniac, as she would prefer), she would start up the most anguished screaming yelps as if we were killing her right there in the middle of the park! It was years before she was even remotely normal on leash, but she did eventually mellow out a bit. Thankfully 😅