My 4 month old puppy is terrified of a leash....?

Question

she will not even begin to walk on a leash and when we do try she gets physically ill....she also will not go on a chain outside to use the bathroom...she has never had any bad experiences so I dont know why she has this reaction...How can I get her to walk on a leash so she can enjoy the outside with the other dogs?

Answer 1

You must move very very slowly,

You must start to condition her to think positively when she sees the leash, start with these excercises indoors.

Start by bringing the leash out with her treats.
Put the leash on the floor and feed her the treats beside the leash.

Do this 4-5 times daily until the dog has no problem accepting treats beside the leash. until she is comfortable
Do Not force the dog near the leash, or put the dog on the leash!

Start feeding all meals with the bowl beside the leash.
Place treats on top of the leash.
NEVER force the dog to go near the leash, she has to take the treats herself.
Roughly 4-5 times daily until dog is comfortable

The third step is to teach the dog to wear the leash,
Connect the leash to the dog, do not hold the leash tight in any way, feed treats.. disconnect the leash.
if the dog is comfortable, feed all her meals with leash connected.
DO NOT attempt to walk the dog yet.

Repeat the last step standing beside her holding the leash.

Next, you want to work on increasing the time.
Place the leash on her so she can wear it during positive experiences, treats, playing with toys. Connect the leash and play her favorite game for 5-10 minutes.
NEVER TRY TO PUSH HER TOO FAST, SLOWER IS BETTER!

Next, connect the leash and place a few treats in a row,
Have her walk "only a few steps"! to get the treats.

Once she is comfortable with that, keep the treats in your hand,
connect the leash and walk around the house.
I cant stress how important it is not to push your dog too far, if your dog becomes afraid after 10 steps, stop at 7 and praise praise praise.

YOU MUST ALWAYS END ON A GOOD NOTE.

Similarly if your dog is making progress, stop while the excercise is till fun. BEFORE she gets bored!
if she loses interest in 15 min, stop at 10!!!

Repeat these steps outside.

If this does not work for you, see a professional immediately.
Every dog is different and may need a different technique.
There was a chihuahua puppy in my class, we had one person take the dog a few steps away from the owner and praised while the dog ran to her. The dog built confidence that way but was not terrified as you describe to begin. You may attempt this after the steps are completed if you feel that it will not traumatize her.


VERY IMPORTANT
The problem escalated when you "comfort" your dog.
When you originally put your dog on the leash and she showed fear, you caressed her and told her it was OK. Right?
When you did this, you told her that she was right to be afraid, in her mind praising her for the behavior and the problem escalated.
STOP this behavior right now. She needs a leader, "pack leader" as Cesar Milan likes to say. If you are her leader she will feel more comfortable.
Focus on what she is afraid of, if you put the leash down and she is scared of it, touch the leash and encourage her to touch it too. Tell her she is a good girl for making moves towards it, Dont acknowledge the fact that she is afraid.

Training takes time, people want a quick fix but the truth is, there usually isnt one, particularly when fear is involoved.

Good luck and email if you need advice,

Answer 2

Well - I beg to differ - your dog has had some kind of bad experience with a leash, or the chain. You can help her to get over it by playing "touch it" games with the leash. When it's mealtime, have that leash down on the floor. Watch her carefully with her food bowl next to you - when she looks at the leash, say "Yes!" and give her some food. Repeat. Then, wait for her to take a step towards the leash. "Yes!" and immediate reward. Repeat. Your goal is to eventually have the dog touch the leash and then look for his reward for doing that. The dog will start to associate touching the leash (with her paw or nose, it doesn't matter which) for mega-rewards.
Next, you can touch the leash yourseld while she's touching it. Yippee! Big payoffs for this. Work very slowly with this - she may associate humans touching leashes with bad stuff. Just be patient and if she's not making progress, take a step backwards. Remember that she'll still happily touch the leash without you touching it - go back to this behavior if you need to.
Alsways let the dog tell you how far to go. Patience on your part will pay off big time, but pushing your dog to do too much will make things worse.
For more help:
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2001c/targettip.htm

I chose the "Targeting" article, because that's basically what you're asking her to do with the leash.

Answer 3

hello, what you can do is get a leash that is not overly long and put it on the dog in the house and go about your business while keeping an eye on puppy. You can get a harness that you leave on your dog just during the train proses so that the dog gets used to something touching them. You can also get a clicker and what you do is click it when your dog has a positive response for example sit and The dog sits click the clicker and offer reward the dog will be condition to take the sound of the click with a positive action and then view The leash positively.

Answer 4

Puppies can be fearful of the unknown. My suggestion is to put a light weight cat leash (not a dog leash) on her in the house and let her take it with her where ever she goes. Try this when you take her outside in your yard also. Watch her to be sure she doesn't get caught on something (table leg, furniture, branches, twigs, rocks etc) and as she accepts that, change to a light weight puppy leash. Repeat the process with the dog leash inside and outside. Once she realizes that that "long thing that is following me" isn't going to hurt her, it will be easier for you to walk her.
She will eventually learn.

Answer 5

let her wear the leash around the house every now and then pick up the leash and walk with her, if she refuses try walking back and forth when she gets going praise her for moving. keep at it inside and outside remember only praise her when she is walking. Do not comfort her when she refuses, or pick her up. By doing so you are reinforcing her unwillingness to walk on the leash. Good Luck stay consistant verbal praise is all she needs who wants to walk around with a pocket full of treats all the time

Answer 6

lay the leash on the ground-when she walks up to it and sniffs it-reward her. once she's comfortable with it in her enviroment-make her sit (distract her with at reat) and put the leash on her. reward her. then let her walk around the house for like 5 minutes comfortably-without holding the leash. once u work ur way up to 15 minutes. pick up the leash-reward her. drop the leash and hold it a little longer. keep on doing this til shes comfortable with you holding the leash. then walk around the house with her while holding the leash (let her lead) eventually work ur way outside for a little bit with her (do this in ur backyard) once shes totally comfortable you can bring her around the block or leave her on a chain


*remember to rewad and correct-also dont move on until she is comfortable

good luck!

Answer 7

Used to train show dogs and started home bred puppies at five or six weeks by loosely tieing a narrow ribbon around their necks and walking them around the room. It may be too late for that to help so I suggest you use a short ribbon even though she doesn't like it tied around her neck. Play with her, love on her, give her treats and ignore the ribbon. She will gradually accustom herself to the restraint and begin to trust that you will not hurt her. It may take awhile but this will work. By the way, I trained a lot of "untrainable" dogs long before the dog whisperer got rich on TV. Good luck.

Answer 8

We have had many litters, of puppies, and th way we introduced the lead, is by rubbing it on the dog, so it picks up the smell of themselves, and make it into a game, and play with your dog, and leave it around the house, for a couple of weeks, for it to get use to it.

Works a treat, put it on with no problem, walking was a different story, lol!

Answer 9

Try putting her leash on when she is inside doing regular things. Leave the leash lying around the house by ehr things (food, bed, toys) so she will see it is nothing to be afraid of.

Answer 10

try laying the leash around the house and dont make a big deal of it being by her ever walk away just act like it's not even there...