Please can someone help with my dog? Im not sure what to do for the best. He is 18 months old, and looks like a Collie Lurcher, although I dont know what he is for sure. He came to me at 12 weeks old after being passed around several homes. He is a lovely dog, but gets very nervous and/or excited on his walks. In the house hes an angel, very calm and well behaved, unless someone is at the door and he gets excited, but generally he is no trouble. However when you step outside for a walk, hes a completely different dog. Its like his senses are instantly heightened and he goes mad. He barks, loudly, shrieks, dances around, cant walk in a straight line. He is better walking on the lead now we use a head collar, but he is still very noisey, tries to walk inside my legs, bursting to be off his lead. His recall isnt great at the moment as theres so much around to set him off like tweety birds, rabbits, scents, anything. If I let him off the lead when he is so manic he will just bolt, run around for a while, until hes ready to come back. Once he is calm, hes ok and recalls ok if there isnt something to chase after. On his lead hes pretty crazy, screams at anything from birds, cats, weird plants, plastic bags. He is reactive towards other dogs on lead, but fine off lead (infact hes not bothered about interacting with other dogs off lead). I cant take him to somewhere like the woods and keep him on lead as he will go insane if he sees a squirrel or bird and he gets himself in such a tizz. If I let him off lead in these areas I will lose all control of him. I have tried long lines, but hes so fast and strong he ends up dashing off and either pulls me over at full pelt, or ends up having a massive jolt, so these arent great for him. He will recall reliably for his ball, but when it comes to home time, he knows it, and he legs it off and wont come back. I have tried distracting him when I see something that might set him off, but hes learnt that when I try and do something like this, there is something near by that would concern him and he takes no notice of the distraction and is fixed on what I might be distracting him from. I have tried thundershirts, calming remedies like valerian and rescue remedy, and these do take the edge off, but not enough to make a real difference. He gets atleast one hour long walk a day, sometimes two or three if there is more time, but he is the same no matter how much exercise he gets (he also spends the day playing with our other two dogs). Im really not sure what to do to try and calm him down outside the house. Hes been like this since he was about 6 months old, hes neutered.. not sure what to do for the best. I hate seeing him get so wound up. :(
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 19:58:49 +0000
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