Hi all,
We have a park around the corner from our house, not even 250m / 275y away. We take him for a walk twice a day in the morning and evening, and are working on heel and side training.
The thing is, he started off liking going to the park but over time he just gets too terrified before he even gets there. Half way down the street he starts sitting down and looking back up the street towards our house. We try to entice him to keep going with high value treats and rewarding him with praise when he keeps going, and that works for a while until when nearly at the park he eventually becomes stubborn as a mule. He looks frightened and looks around at anything making any noise. When I pick him up his heart is beating and that point he is no longer interested in treats.
The option from there is to either pick him up and carry him into the park (where once he's fully in he's happy to run around and sniff things) or walk back home. And walking back he's an angel, but all too eager to try to bolt ahead towards home (which we're training on staying by our side).
He has just turned 5 months, though we've only had him for 3 weeks. He seems to have gone backwards and I can't figure out how to get his confidence back up - other than just persevere...
I'm sure he's probably thinking "We've got a fun backward, why the heck are you forcing me to come here where there's dogs and kids on bikes AAAAHHH" but we'd like to get into a routine of going to park to keep both of us active.
Any tips would be much appreciated!
We have a park around the corner from our house, not even 250m / 275y away. We take him for a walk twice a day in the morning and evening, and are working on heel and side training.
The thing is, he started off liking going to the park but over time he just gets too terrified before he even gets there. Half way down the street he starts sitting down and looking back up the street towards our house. We try to entice him to keep going with high value treats and rewarding him with praise when he keeps going, and that works for a while until when nearly at the park he eventually becomes stubborn as a mule. He looks frightened and looks around at anything making any noise. When I pick him up his heart is beating and that point he is no longer interested in treats.
The option from there is to either pick him up and carry him into the park (where once he's fully in he's happy to run around and sniff things) or walk back home. And walking back he's an angel, but all too eager to try to bolt ahead towards home (which we're training on staying by our side).
He has just turned 5 months, though we've only had him for 3 weeks. He seems to have gone backwards and I can't figure out how to get his confidence back up - other than just persevere...
I'm sure he's probably thinking "We've got a fun backward, why the heck are you forcing me to come here where there's dogs and kids on bikes AAAAHHH" but we'd like to get into a routine of going to park to keep both of us active.
Any tips would be much appreciated!
