First of all, we don't walk them nearly enough. Hubby got lazy and out the habit and then he hurt his back last week. Not to mention it rains here almost every day and has been plain miserable. It's been a couple of months at least since I was the one actually holding the leash and at that time, he was a breeze..strong yes, but a good walker. He's gotten much more hmm...active? I'm not sure what the word is, but he's not nearly as laid back as he used to be. Excitable I guess you could say. Last time hubby walked him he apparently freaked out at a Collie behind a fence that was going ballistic at him from several houses down. Hubby said it took all he had to hold onto Yukon and he was barking at him until he stopped I guess. He said Yukon didn't get completely crazy until the Collie would just not shut up. Yukon may have wanted to play, who really knows.
Well yesterday it was nice and hadn't rained yet so I thougt I'd be daring and take the kids and ONE dog for a walk. I took Yukon knowing he was harder to walk, I guess I wanted to get him used to doing it and before I'm so big and pregnant I wouldn't be able to handle him. Well the first street we went down there were 3 dogs behind a 4ft chainlink fence, a small one, a Golden and some sort of Great Dane mix I think, it was huge. They were going NUTS, again from several houses down and I reall thought the Dane would come over the fence. Yukon started to pull as soon as he noticed them so I wrapped the leash around my hand to get some control and told him to calm down, he really didn't. So I grabbed him by the collar and used all my strength to make him walk slowly so he wouldn't take off dragging me across the street. It entered my mind to turn around and not go past the house but I thought he needed to learn how to act. So..we got past it, with my holding his collar, and tripping over him every 3 steps as he tried to get to the other side of the street. The neighbors saw what was happening so they ran and got treats to distract the dogs as we went past- and that worked for them, but of course Yukon kept lunging and pulling with all his might. Once we got past he relaxed and I told him he was a good boy and kept petting him.
But wow, mental note, never go down that street again by myself any time soon.
Anyone want to offer up any training advice to deal with this situation? They've not yet been to obedience classes and are generally really well behaved but obviously some things are changing with Yukon..Yiska still does really well on her walks. He's really good with people and when we got back to the house, I stopped awhile to talk to my neighbor and he sat there the whole time waiting and just being alert to things around him, but she remarked on how patient he was.
I've got harnesses for them.. I think Yukon has pretty much grown out of his but even a snug harness didn't hold him back, though I'm sure it helped. I just want to be able to walk him being pg and not afraid I'm going to be hurt, and also if it's this hard to get control of him now, even with all of a grown man's strength what is it going to be like when he is grown? He's only 6 months old now.
Sorry so long. Thanks in advance for anything you can offer!