We just adopted a 4 year old retired racing greyhound 1 week ago. Up until today, she was great on walks. We would go 20 mins in the morning and 45 mins in the evening. She seemed to really enjoy our walks and (as far as I am aware) there is nothing we encountered that would have scared her. Just yesterday morning though, I could not get her to go further than maybe the end of the street. We live in a fairly quiet suburb, so it's not a busy road. She did her business, and then refused to budge. I pulled her collar with my hand to direct her and we went home.
After getting home, I looked it up an apparently this is fairly common for greys? It seemed really sudden though, she was really great on her leash and enjoying walks with no issue until this point. I read all these techniques, such as walking in a circle, using treats, or directing her with the collar... no luck. I tried taking her for our usual evening walk yesterday and it was worse than the morning. I couldn't even get her more than maybe 30 meters from our house. I did end up getting her to start walking back towards our house, and I kept walking past our house and we went maybe another 30 meters the other way and then she refused to budge again. Then, this morning was probably the worst, I couldn't even get her to walk off our front lawn. I just tried again over my lunch break and she is now being difficult to even leave the backyard, so I can't really even get her to walk around back there. None of the techniques worked, I basically had to shove her from behind until she realized we were walking towards the house again. If I shove her or direct her in the other direction she does not budge at all. I feel I am maybe being counterproductive by physically pushing her, as well, and making it worse.
I am looking for some advice! This was not an issue until yesterday. Is this something that will go away once she becomes more comfortable with us? We don't have a fenced backyard so she can't run around back there, so I'm worried she's not getting enough exercise right now since she had no walks yesterday and just slept all day, and today is looking to be the same situation. She doesn't play with toys either so its been hard to get her active inside the house.
