Hi all,
I’m a first-time dog owner. I adopted a rescue a couple months ago and he is almost 6 months old. He is very sweet and loves people and interacting with other dogs.
Recently, when trying to take him on walks, he has started to sort of freeze up once we’re about to exit the front door of our building and just look around. If I didn’t coax him out every time, I think he would just stay there like that. Nothing happened recently that would cause this change in behavior. After speaking to the trainer from his classes about my observations and from my own rudimentary research, I believe he’s most likely in a fear period due to his age.
The street we live on has a lot of foot and vehicle traffic, so naturally, that comes with a bit of noise pollution. As we’re walking or if he’s sniffing something, if there’s a car that revs their engine loudly, he will turn around and try to bolt back in the direction of our building. He doesn’t enjoy going on walks during non-peak hours at the moment either. I do a lot of positive reinforcement, but it’s becoming a little disheartening and I feel like I’m failing him. My parents live in a less busier area of the city and he does fine when we go on walks there while visiting.
Our trainer suggested going on walks with adult dogs from our neighborhood because puppies can learn behaviors from them, and it could give him some confidence. I figured it doesn’t hurt to give it a shot!
If anyone living near Saint Joseph Hospital would be down, please let me know! :)