This is Gobbles. Gobbles is a 2 year old mixed that we rescued at the end of April this year. He's loving, friendly, smart, playful, extremely cuddly, and just an overall big doofus. He's also extremely hyper and ADHD to the point of making my ADHD look sedated. The fosters told us that he was a pleasure to walk, which turned out to be a bold faced giant sack of DS (dog $&^%). While he's relatively good in the house, his recall in the yard has gotten loads better, and his overall manners have improved, walking him on a leash is an extremely stressful and unenjoyable experience. He is all over the place - it is impossible to get him to focus on us for more then 30 seconds, even with treats, the minute he sees or hears another dog, he goes ballistic and uses all of his 75lbs to pull myself or my wife down the street, and it's gotten to the point where I've either needed to drag him (choking him in the process) down the street, or literally today had to tackle him because I couldn't get him to stop and he almost pulled me over. It's at the point where I'm sure the neighbors that don't know us think we're insane and are abusing our dog, which is 100% not the case. Along with that, he is so distracted, and kind of anxious, about absolutely EVERYTHING. Dog barks 6 miles away? He's focused on that. Car door closes a few houses down? Good lock trying to get him to look at you. His lack of focus when we're outside of our property walking is astonishing. I'm a middle school teacher, so I've seen a lot of unfocused hyperactive kids, but Gobbles makes them all look perfectly calm. In the house, he'll whine for attention or just if he's bored, and he does have a ton of energy, which is understandable for a 2 year old puppy who is in his 4th home, and that's all ok - it's the walks that are the problems. To be fair, they are better than they were at the end of April when we got him, but at this point, they kind of hit a plateau near the mid-end of August.
For a little bit of background, Gobbles is our 5th dog in 13 years. We currently have 2 other girls, a 9 year old dobie mix and a 11 year old cockapoo, before that we had a rottie/lab mix that we had before we got the 2 girls and passed last year, and then our first dog who was a dobie mix and had sever neurological issues that we were unaware of when we adopted him and had to learn how to train dogs. While we're def. not professional dog trainers, we are constantly complimented on how well our dogs (minus Gobbles) behave and walk both on leash and off. I was a big trail runner for a few years, so the rottie and my current 2 girls were trained for off leash woods excursions and were immaculate in their performance. So while I don't know everything, I've had incredible success with the first 4 dogs we adopted.
Here are all the things we have tried and have not worked. All of them have also involved treats and positive reinforcement, though at some points, negative reinforcement has been used, as well. Right now we're using a martingale so he can't escape if he pulls or tries to get out of it.
We can't currently afford a trainer to help us out, and we don't want to be seen as those crazy ass neighbors with the crazy dog. He's really such a great boy, but this walking thing has to be reigned in a bit. We know it takes time, we got that, we don't have kids so we dedicated our energy to our dogs, but this is the first time since our first dog 13 years ago that we're at a loss as to what to do.
For a little bit of background, Gobbles is our 5th dog in 13 years. We currently have 2 other girls, a 9 year old dobie mix and a 11 year old cockapoo, before that we had a rottie/lab mix that we had before we got the 2 girls and passed last year, and then our first dog who was a dobie mix and had sever neurological issues that we were unaware of when we adopted him and had to learn how to train dogs. While we're def. not professional dog trainers, we are constantly complimented on how well our dogs (minus Gobbles) behave and walk both on leash and off. I was a big trail runner for a few years, so the rottie and my current 2 girls were trained for off leash woods excursions and were immaculate in their performance. So while I don't know everything, I've had incredible success with the first 4 dogs we adopted.
Here are all the things we have tried and have not worked. All of them have also involved treats and positive reinforcement, though at some points, negative reinforcement has been used, as well. Right now we're using a martingale so he can't escape if he pulls or tries to get out of it.
- Halti - both the face and body kind that latches in the front. These did absolutely nothing.
- Remote collar - give me all the crap you want about it, but when you're running with 3 dogs of leash in the woods, having these is a fantastic precaution and all of them had learned the tone meant to come so I didn't need to ruin the serenity of the woods. While the collar worked well with him when I was up in NH visiting family in the middle of nowhere without a fenced in yard, it really doesn't translate to leash walking.
- Clicker and treats - teaching the basics of walk, look (or "watch me"), plus the other basics (sit, paw, lay down, go to bed). In the house, he's a friggin' champ, and on walks with absolutely NO distractions, he's pretty good. As for treats, we've tried so many different kinds, including fresh cooked chicken, steak, cheese, etc. There is no high reward that is more exciting than that damn dog bark 18 miles away.
- Walking in circles - when he starts pulling, we give the heel command, turn around, and walk the other way. This works for about 30 seconds before he stops focusing and starts pulling again. I could spend an hour walking a 100ft stretch of road back and forth and still not see real improvement.
- Positive energy - no no, not that hippie stuff, more like trying to be more exciting and such than everything else around him. While my wife is better at that than I (I can maybe keep that up for 5 minutes), it still only works sometimes, and is def. overpowered by other stuff.
We can't currently afford a trainer to help us out, and we don't want to be seen as those crazy ass neighbors with the crazy dog. He's really such a great boy, but this walking thing has to be reigned in a bit. We know it takes time, we got that, we don't have kids so we dedicated our energy to our dogs, but this is the first time since our first dog 13 years ago that we're at a loss as to what to do.