Puppy Refuses to Walk on Leash

[Bre]

I just adopted a 4 month old black lab mix (Luna) last week. The lady I adopted her from was going to take her to a local kill shelter. Luna has a problem of pulling on the leash, a problem that we are working on to fix. But now, suddenly, she's developed a behavior of refusing to walk.

If we're walking along, she'll slam on the brakes and refuse to walk anywhere. At first, I thought she did this because she was scared...she did this whenever I approached a certain trash receptacle, but was fine walking by others...it was just that particular area. But now she does this if I try to walk by another dog or some people, she'll pull against me and refuse to move. I don't want to pull her, and I don't want to offer her treats in order to get her to move, because I don't want to reinforce her negative behavior. Advice? Ideas? Does anyone else have this problem?

[McMegan]

My lab, Murray, did this same thing about a month after I adopted him. He was fine on leash overall but, same thing, he'd randomly start slamming on the brakes for no reason that I could ever figure out.

First of all, what type of leash hardware are you using? Flat nylon collar and nylon lead? Retractable lead? Harness? Since you're already working on her leash walking, you've probably looked into various different items and have settled on something that seems to work for Luna. Personally, I like either a Freedom or Easy Walker harness - the leash attaches to the front of these so it really helps correct pulling, even in more powerful dogs, and if the dog does pull, it keeps the strain off their neck and throat. Other people like the Gentle Leader or Haltie head-harnesses, which work along more or less the same principal and keep the dog's head directed toward you. Harder for some dogs to adjust to, but they can work very well and there are excellent videos available to demonstrate proper fitting.

Next, have you consulted a trainer regarding basic leash-walking skills or the hitting-the-brakes problem? It would be great to get Luna into a positive-training puppy class or beginning obedience class, where you can get some guided practice at the leash skills as well as some socialization time with her since it sounds like she might be developing a little shyness towards strangers and/or strange dogs on your walks.

Although my Lab's problem kind of went away on its own as we got to know each other, three techniques that all worked (in varying degrees depending on the day, his mood, my mood, etc) were the "lets go!" cue, the "find it!" cue (his favorite, since chasing food is involved) and the heel cue. Of course, you actually have to train all three of those in order for them to work Eventually, once Murray's recall was solid enough and I knew it wasn't dangerous and he wasn't going to take off in the opposite direction, if he hit the brakes really hard I'd walk on ahead about 20 feet, sit down on the ground for a minute and if that didn't get him curious enough to get him moving towards me, I'd just show him a treat and call him and that got his feet moving again - ultimately, that was all it took (plus he was thinking more about the treat in my hand than the fact that, oops! suddenly he was walking again!)

Meanwhile, Paul Owens' Dog Whisperer DVD (not to be confused with the TV show) has excellent demonstrations and his books (Dog Whisperer and Puppy Whisperer) both go into a lot of detail as to the training methods and uses of all of the cues listed above.

Hope this helps!