Shiny_Grey

Thank you to everyone who has responded. We had a couple come over today with their greyhounds as we heard walking with more confident dogs can help. He still froze up on the driveway and in multiple places around the neighbourhood. We had some success but you could see he was getting overwhelmed. Ears pinned back, unsure expression and his tail wasn't relaxed at all. I feel so bad for him at the moment, he seemed fine on walks but seeing him now makes me feel like we've made him unhappy. We tried putting him in the car and taking him to another point on our usual walk. Took a lot to get him out of the car and then he started really strongly walking in a direction he has never gone before. We carried on with him, to see what would happen but its not a route that would make a round trip. We had to double back on ourselves to go home but he just froze up. We had to get him back to the road - gradually - and then I had to get my husband to bring the car to us to take us home. Was a bit of a disaster. I've been reassured that we just need to keep persevering, seeing how far he will go and not pushing him to do a full walk. I am happy to stand on the driveway while he takes it in until he's had enough. Essentially I will see how far he wants to go, but when he starts pulling back to the house I'll call it a day. Treats and distractions seem to help for a few paces, we will try to make the outside world a positive place. Hopefully he will start to calm down over the next few weeks and months.

We adopted our gorgeous boy (3 years old) about 2 weeks ago. He has never been in a home before and we don't know much about his history except that he's had no injuries. From day one he loved going for walks, he would trot up to us when we got our coat/shoes on, wagging his tail and could barely contain himself when we got his collar/lead/muzzle/ coat on. All of a sudden a few days ago he started to stop on his walks, he would start walking and then halfway down the road he would just stop. He'd only start walking again if we went back towards home. He would stop to sniff which we let him do on patches of grass around the neighbourhood and then meander back towards home, digging his brakes in if we didn't go with him. Now its a struggle to get him to leave the house or get past the driveway. He seems to be able to move when a treat is offered or when a toy is offered but we can't do that every few paces. Our neighbourhood is very quiet, there's barely ever anyone else around besides one or two dog walkers/walkers and hardly any cars. He has gone from being keen for his walk to walking away from us when we get his lead out. I don't want my boy to be unhappy - he has a small garden that he has zoomies in and a play to make sure he gets exercise, he does his business both on the walk and in the garden usually. I would be very grateful for any ideas on building his confidence or narrowing down the root cause of this issue. He did seem to enjoy his walks and getting to sniff around the neighbourhood, I'd like to get back to that if possible. - We were giving him 2 half hour walks a day, we have been stairs training him daily in the past few days. Only for 10 minutes at a time so I wonder if that's over exercising him? We've cut that down to every other day - I noticed his paws seemed dry, so I have started applying paw butter to head that off - He has been fussing at a few places on his body and causing hair loss, that seems to be getting better - we will be looking into his food in case there's an allergy(gradual changes). He had a lot of dandruff when we first brought him home but next to none now. We are brushing him regularly as he seems to be shedding - He will walk forwards to pick up a treat but will stop again, we squeak a toy and he looks for it and will play on the spot but won't progress on the walk, we've tried waiting it out and using gentle encouragement but its taking half an hour just to get him to move a few metres - He is very attached to us in the house, doesn't like it when he can't get to us so most of the time we are with him - even sleeping in the living room until his stairs training is complete - we will be doing separation training gradually with him but trying not to overwhelm him at the moment - He doesn't seem to be limping and there's no tenderness in his limbs/back/paws/muscles/ legs etc - As far as we know he's not had any negative experiences on a walk - no dogs get anywhere near us and things are usually really relaxed and straightforward - He seems to be growing more concerned with noises outside the house, it is a very quiet neighbourhood but he gets anxious when he hears my neighbour getting in/out of his car / a delivery driver etc. We have a routine vet check up scheduled for 2 weeks time, I'll get them to do a thorough check to make sure there's nothing else going on. I'd love to know how to build his confidence and get him back to happy walkies Thank you for taking the time to read this, any advice is appreciated