Freezing When Walking

[Guest Taylor88]

Hi all, I'm looking for some advice from anyone who has a grey that behaves like ours does please! Apologies it might be a long post!

 

Poppy is 3, had her since 18 months, 'retired' but never raced. She's perfectly normal at home, gets more playful than our previous two greys, possibly down to being in kennels for less time and younger. Where the difference is is when out for a walk. She will be walking along and then suddenly freeze, refuse to go any further until we turn around. She will also do this at points on the road where she wants to cross or at junctions. Recently she's even done it after her walk refusing to come back in the house!

 

She most often does it at or approaching corners or junctions but sometimes along a straight road or path. She also often does it at the end of the driveway at the start of a walk.

 

We've narrowed it down to her being scared/anxious of something... or stubborn! There is no obvious single trigger (sound, object etc) and she doesn't whine, shiver, shake or tuck her tail between her legs or give off any strong signals of fear.

 

We've tried being firm with her, pushing her gently from the shoulder or back, waiting for her, trying to give her treats, consoling her by stroking her and fussing her when she stops and none seem to make her carry on in the intended direction. We don't want to keep praising her for doing it if it reinforces the problem nor do we want to tell her off if she is scared.

 

She enjoys walking and gets relatively excited when we get her lead out but will also be happy not to go for a walk all day (we don't want to not walk her!)

 

So if anyone else has come across this we'd love to know if there is anything you've tried that stops this behaviour or can identify what the issue is.

 

Thanks in advance!

[BatterseaBrindl]

No advice as nine of mine have ever done this.

It is called statuing. Perhaps do a forum search for that

[Guest CometStar]

Just my two cents, based on my own experience: My dog went through a phase when he did this frequently and he still does it occasionally, and as far as I can tell, it's not fear, just not wanting to walk -- as soon as he's pooped, he's done and wants to go back to bed. I figure, if he's not enjoying the walk, why force it? So we head back home.

 

On the rare occasion that I feel like that's not a good idea for whatever reason, I just keep going in the direction I want to go. He used to resist but learned pretty quickly it didn't get him anywhere, and as soon as he moved toward me I gave him a treat. But I do try to keep the walk short when he's made it clear he would rather go home.

 

Also, you might take her to the vet to make sure she doesn't have joint issues, corns, or other problems that would cause pain on a walk.

 

(The refusal to come back in the house stymies me. Normally I'd think she wanted to keep going on the walk, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. Or maybe she does, but she only wants to go where she wants to go? Comet once froze in front of a pet store because he really, really wanted to go inside.)

 

This seems to be a really common greyhound issue, and if you google "greyhound freezing on walk," you'll get a bunch of results. Hopefully one of them helps!

[LaFlaca]

Sometimes putting a lead behind their rumps will make them move. Works on horses and on my Grey, Lola.

[mansbestfriend]

Hi. Every dog is an individual. Using my grey as an example, one of the only ways he can ask me something* during a walk is to stand very still *EG: walk left, right, straight ahead, do a U-turn, have a rest, sniff a pee mail, leave a pee mail, poo, have a drink, "I'm scared of the distant thunder or whatever", "I have sore joints", "There's a thorn in my foot", etc.etc.etc. There are several techniques to get moving again but usually my grey is just asking to take a detour. Sometimes we can't detour but usually we can, and do. Cheers.

[Guest AKeenSense]

We have only had our greyhound for 6 weeks (give or take) but we also have encountered this phenomenon! "Statuing", it is a feature not a bug of the greyhound. Our grey would stop a lot on our morning and evening walks (roughly a mile long). But now that we have all gotten used to one another it has been very different. What helps is to stop acknowledge their hesitance and reassure them they are good to continue. I also started short training sessions in the house with freeze dried treats and she really understands the word 'come'. This helps wonders when we are on our walks (now climbing up to 2 miles). We just noticed it took some time for her to trust us and us to trust her so if she really was sensing something she didn't want to go near we would pay more attention. Hope this helps!