Hi everyone! I am new to this forum and am so excited to get to know other golden-lovers..and get some advice! My baby, Dexter, is 9 months old and my husband and I are still having trouble getting him to walk correctly. We bought a harness for Dexter to wear, which helps to control him a little bit...but now that he is so strong {almost to 70lbs!} it's not helping much.
Our typical walk consists of Dexter pulling very hard to get to whatever grabs his attention - a blowing leaf, a noise, a wrapper on the ground. If my husband is walking him he doesn't get pulled too much but if I am walking him I end up running because I can't hold him back to me anymore since he is so strong now. The walk is generally okay despite the pulling... until we get half-way through and/or on our road to come back home ... Dexter will zig zag back and forth, jump up and bite the leash, growl, snap at us and try to bite us..it's very frustrating. Recently we were both walking with him and Dexter put his mouth around my husband's ankle trying to bite him. Once he starts doing this we say "NO!", make him sit and stay {he knows those commands pretty well} for a few minutes until we continue walking but once we start to move again he will do it again. It's gotten to the point where my husband will pick him up over his shoulders and carry him to rest of the way home...I don't walk him alone anymore because I can't lift him up..
What's strange is he NEVER jumps and does this crazy act if we come down our street on the opposite side from where our house is and on the left ... if we come home any other side of the street or direction, he does this. Sometimes he does it in the middle of the walk but more often than not it's at the end. I read that he might be doing it because he doesn't want the walk to end, but we always walk him for half an hour or so at a time and we try to go twice a day weather permitting. And once he starts doing this, the walk ends as fast as it can because we are so frustrated. On our walks we usually take him to the enclosed baseball field and play fetch with him and let him run off of the leash for a while to burn more energy but he will still zig zag and go bonkers at some point on the walk...
Has anyone experienced this? We tried treat training initially and that didn't seem to work with him .. unless we did it wrong .. We know how important exercise is for him but it's getting really, really hard to do it.. Please help! I want to be able to walk with him all of the time!!
Our typical walk consists of Dexter pulling very hard to get to whatever grabs his attention - a blowing leaf, a noise, a wrapper on the ground. If my husband is walking him he doesn't get pulled too much but if I am walking him I end up running because I can't hold him back to me anymore since he is so strong now. The walk is generally okay despite the pulling... until we get half-way through and/or on our road to come back home ... Dexter will zig zag back and forth, jump up and bite the leash, growl, snap at us and try to bite us..it's very frustrating. Recently we were both walking with him and Dexter put his mouth around my husband's ankle trying to bite him. Once he starts doing this we say "NO!", make him sit and stay {he knows those commands pretty well} for a few minutes until we continue walking but once we start to move again he will do it again. It's gotten to the point where my husband will pick him up over his shoulders and carry him to rest of the way home...I don't walk him alone anymore because I can't lift him up..
What's strange is he NEVER jumps and does this crazy act if we come down our street on the opposite side from where our house is and on the left ... if we come home any other side of the street or direction, he does this. Sometimes he does it in the middle of the walk but more often than not it's at the end. I read that he might be doing it because he doesn't want the walk to end, but we always walk him for half an hour or so at a time and we try to go twice a day weather permitting. And once he starts doing this, the walk ends as fast as it can because we are so frustrated. On our walks we usually take him to the enclosed baseball field and play fetch with him and let him run off of the leash for a while to burn more energy but he will still zig zag and go bonkers at some point on the walk...
Has anyone experienced this? We tried treat training initially and that didn't seem to work with him .. unless we did it wrong .. We know how important exercise is for him but it's getting really, really hard to do it.. Please help! I want to be able to walk with him all of the time!!