New addition very excitable before walk. Can't control him

Hi everyone,

we we have 2 cavaliers - Wilson is 4 and Chester is 8 months old. We have had Chester for 3 months now - he previously had a different owner but I'm guessing they couldn't. Cope, so gave him up - we got him from a local rescue place.

chester has been neutered (nearly 2 weeks ago now).

we are having real issues when it comes to going for a walk. We put his harness on and he starts whining, and as we go to clip on the lead, this whining turns in to full scale jumping at the door and high pitched barking. At this point, I unclip the lead, put it on the side and walk away for a minute or so until he settles a bit.

i always make him sit before trying to attach the lead, but any command I give him at this point is followed by a high pitched bark and more jumping at the door. I refuse to let him out of the door until he calms down. - I have been trying for 45 mins some days with no success.

sometimes, this means he has no walk as I can't physically get him out of the door (I don't want to reward him with barking, by giving him a walk). I end up taking him upstairs and put him in our spare room just so I can take our other dog out.

does anyone have any ideas please? we have him booked on a general dog training course, and we've also booked some one to one training but they aren't available until September!!

many thanks for help in advance
mark

Sounds like you are doing everything right. Usually, by remaining calm (not easy with that piercing CKC bark) and ignoring bad behavior and turning your back on the barking pup, will be enough to cue the pup to stop and pay attention. has this been going on for 4 months?

joandesan said:

Sounds like you are doing everything right. Usually, by remaining calm (not easy with that piercing CKC bark) and ignoring bad behavior and turning your back on the barking pup, will be enough to cue the pup to stop and pay attention. has this been going on for 4 months?

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Thank you you for your reply.

when we first got him he seemed to be okay. I admit we were slack with training at first, maybe as we were were adjusting to having a puppy again. I just got him out after 20 minutes and about 6 attempts. I made him sit further away from the door and gave him a couple of treats when sat quietly.

We got out the door without barking, but the pulling starts big time.... I'm going to work on the principle of doing a few tiny walks (5mins) per day in the hope that it isn't as exciting when he sees the lead.... And once I've mastered the get out door quietly then I can focus my time on walk to heel.

its stressful but I try to remain calm!

Is Chester a confident dog? Sometimes the only way to stop incessant barking is the water pistol! A squirter bottle of water followed by the command 'Quiet' works well - after a few goes, just reaching for the bottle stops the noise. But definitely not to be done on a shy dog - a tough remedy for a tough dog! Personally I don't like using water but it does work - I have an incessantly barking rescue who drives me demented!

A good remedy for pulling is to stop and walk backwards.This automatically makes the dog walk towards you - then when he reaches your side, where you want him to walk, praise and reward him, with whatever word you want to use, such as heel, walk or close, and move forward again. You won't advance very far on your walk, because you'll probably have to walk backwards every few seconds to begin with, so you need to regard every outing as a training session. But eventually the dog realises that he's not going to get anywhere if he keeps pulling - he'll only get to the park by walking beside you. Won't work with every dog - they can be so different - but worth a try. A front fastening harness, like the Easy Walk, can help as well, since the dog is turned towards you when he pulls.

Best of luck!

Kate and Ruby - the noisy one!

Glad to hear that you made some progress!! I'm not the most patient person in the world, so I feel your pain. However, as we all know, time spent now breaking these bad habits will result in many years of happy dog ownership.

Kate gave some great suggestions. I especially like the harness one for the pulling.

I'm surprised Wilson's model behavior doesn't clue Chester in. I have three dogs and it always seemed to me that the older one "taught" the younger ones the rules of the house. I might just be very lucky as I have three mellow dogs. The only time Bosco gets overly excited is at meal time, and even then a stern "no" or withholding putting down the food bowl will make him sit patiently.

Keep us posted, if you can keep your calm, and work with Chester daily, he will come along. Easier said than done though.

I've always known that we are very complacent with our discipline but this behavior wouldn't bother us at all. Our Cav is 5 1/2 yrs old and if we go toward the basket that holds leashes he grabs a toy, starts running very fast in circles, sliding on the hardwood, all because of excitement. We think it's cute. Of course, we're in our 70s and have all the time in the world. He's pretty inquisitive for the first part of his walk, smelling every flower, peeing on every tall blade of grass, etc, but settles down eventually and does great.

I'd add that when you do get him able to head out for a walk, if you have the chance to let him play at a dog park off-leash where he can tire himself out, that's worth doing (even if not everyday). Tired dogs (not exhausted, just all the crazies run out of them) have an easier time paying attention. So while you're back at home and he's relaxed that evening, do a few rounds of good behaviour and putting the leash on nicely and going out the door (fine to just go visit the mailbox then back in). Although you may want to do a little bit of walk with him at this point, because this is when I find it easiest to train puppies to walk on a loose leash, they easily earn lots of praise for how well behaved they are in this state.