cherwalsh_99

This morning on our normal walk (about 15 minutes), a few houses from mine my boy stopped - which he does sometimes - and sat, which as a greyhound, he NEVER does. I wonder if he pulled a muscle or something. I was able to get him home by squealing “cmon boy...COOKIE!” but just barely. He’d walk four or five steps then stop and sit again. He came in, drank a bunch or water and laid down, which he always does. He does not appear to be in any pain and is acting normal. One thing worth noting, maybe, I jogged with him for maybe 30 steps a bit before he did this. I also do this with him sometimes, but he has never done this before. I’m worried about him.

Thank you all so much, again. To speak to other points/questions here - I really prefer to not walk him in the dark or at first light. We have swarms of neighborhood cats who are very active that time of day, making the walk much more challenging than him or I need. As I start work at 6AM a before-work walk is out of the question most of the year. - we have a large fenced yard so he’s not whining for a pee/poo. - I’ve been working on “go lie down” and “wait”, and varying the walk time. He has had some improvement. The truly invasive begging (crying an inch from me and poking me with his nose) has stopped! :-)

Thanks guys! I can’t walk him consistently before the start of my workday b/c that is 6AM and most of the year it is dark. I will work on Wait & go lie down with him. He’s such a good boy so I’m glad to hear I didn’t mess him up too much.

I have had my boy for three years. He has always been really well behaved and content. But we really never left the house with him much, just to drive to the dog park, so we had the idea that we should start trying to integrate him into our lives outside the home. The first step was taking him for morning walks. I work from home and travel occasionally usually a week at a time. So I started taking a morning break to walk him for about 20 minutes. It went well. Then one day I had a meeting during this time. This is when the whining and complaining started. We got into this pattern of him whining and pestering me, invasively, right next to me poking me with his nose and crying. I now refuse to take him out now until he has been laying down quietly for a solid 30 minutes, but my entire morning is spent now with him waiting, waiting, waiting. If I get up to get coffee or stretch he JUMPS up and runs to me, all excited, only to have me sit back down. I feel so bad. I want to walk him but my schedule is not such that I can do it the same time every day, and it’s starting to feel like I’m torturing him...and to be fair his whining is driving me nuts. Is it better to just not walk him at all?