At a bit of a loss;

[Lilybet8241]

Hi Everyone, I'm hoping someone can shed some light on why my dog does what he does. Briefly, he is a two and half year old neutered cockapoo. All vaccinations up to date. He is inclined to be a fearful, nervy dog & I have worked hard in the past with both a behaviourist and a trainer to get him past his chasing g issues which were beginning to go down the route of becoming aggressive. He has blossomed in his own wee way & is happy to meet strangers and solicit petting, but is still fairly territorial in the house, hut will settle with strangers coming in after a few minutes...we usually keep him away and then bring him into the room to introduce him. He walks reasonably well on a loose lead when either I or my husband walk him. What has become apparent is that if we walk him together, unless we actually rub shoulders, he pulls like a train. Should one of us step either forward or back eg if the pavement narrows, then he surges ahead and will pull until we manage to get shoulder to shoulder again. It doesn't make a difference who holds the lead. Our circumstances are such that we are rarely able to walk him together hence the time it had taken us to find this out. The other thing he will do is if he is left with one of us eg in a park, while the other one goes off to a shop or to get coffee, once he is let off the lead he will go chasing off in the direction they went. It has only happened once, but his body language has been such that I know he would have done it again. Presumably he is trying to keep his pack together? He does not do this during any normal walk and his recall is reasonable, unless a deer or a cat should cross his path, when his focus is locked on. We are also worki g on this snd are making headway with tbe deer, cats not so much...yet. Any suggestions gratefully received. Thank you!

[JudyN]

My dog also would get upset if we went out together and then split up. I don't think he trusts either of us to go wandering off on our own To be honest, we just deal with this by staying together - though he's got used to staying outside a shop with me and waiting while OH goes in to buy something. We tried to introduce playing 'hide and seek' in the woods, thinking he might enjoy using some tracking skills, but he got upset when one of us held him on lead and the other went off to hide.

I'm wondering if you could train him to walk nicely on lead with the two of you by going out for very short walks together, going right back to basics, stopping every time he moved ahead? Don't aim to go anywhere in particular, this is all about training - when I was training my lad to walk on lead we might only move 20 yards in 5 minutes, then go home. There's a thread about walking on lead here where you might be able to adapt the advice to walking together: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=858

[Lilybet8241]

Thanks JudyN, will give it a go. Any training to help with walking has to be a good thing