Chasing Cars

Molly loves to go for walks. We live in a quiet, rural housing development that was built back in the 1930's. Roads are narrow and winding. The average cars go about 25 to 30 mph. No sidewalks, just drainage ditches along sides of roads.

When we are walking along and a car comes by, I make Molly sit at my feet until the car passes. She has become so accustomed to sitting that sometimes she will sit down with out being told to, when a car comes by. I usually hang on to her collar or hold closely on the leash.

The last two trips out she has started a behavior that concerns me. She watches the car as it passes us and when the rear bumper has just passed, she will lunge toward the car. I pull back on the collar or leash telling her to sit. But it takes a minute or two to regain her attention. What is the best way to prevent her from lunging? I am so afraid this will lead to chasing cars in the future.

Just be aware of it and keep her in a sit until the car has moved on .... then reward her .

The key here is to get the dog to focus on YOU. A car coming should begin to mean to her that IF she pays attention to YOU, she is about to get a particularly tasty or fun reward. Seriously good cheese, leftover table meats, and fun few seconds of a tug game, whatever turns her on.

Find whatever it is that she will ENJOY focusing on, instead of the car. It might be you can also try things like not stopping when a car comes by.

Good luck, I think you just need to take this opportunity to work on building positive focus and attention from your dog and that will take care of your issue.

I agree, you can definately teach her to focus on you and then try to keep her focus until after the car has passed.

It might also be a good idea to not stop when cars pass. Stopping might make the cars seem more interesting, and since nothing else is going on (the "boring" sit), she might be trying to invent a game. When I walk my dog, I walk on the left side of the road with my dog on my left side - so that if a car comes, she has to walk around me to be in danger of the car, which she shouldn't do if the training was good. Then of course we just continue walking when a car comes, and she usually doesn't even act like she notices it.

Thanks for the advice. I will try the "Keep walking" suggestion when ever possible. Due to the narrow roads we do have to move completely off the road when a car comes. Sometimes we can continue to walk because the grassy area is open but sometimes there is a lot of brush so we need to stop. That is how I got started on the "sit". Thanks again!

I have the same problem in a different situation. We live in a rural area on 20 acres of fenced land. All of our dogs have always been free to roam our land and swim in our pond. Our driveway is about half a mile long and our three puppies love to chase cars coming up the driveway. We lost a puppy two months ago because I didn't see him behind a tree and he ran under my car. Last weekend, one of our three pups did the same , but thankfully I wasn't driving and he survived it.
We do have a dog run that we keep the puppies in during the day, but its just not big enough to keep them in all the time, and I like them to be able to run and have fun. But we constantly have to make sure they are inside when we know people are coming and if a random car comes up like it did last weekend and the pups are outside, there is no way to protect them from themselves. They are 15 weeks old and seem to be very smart and trainable, I'm just not sure how to go about it. What can I do?

Teach your puppies a recall, and never let them off leash until they are very solid with the recall.

I'm sure you understand the importance of the leash and proper, thorough training, since you've killed or nearly killed two puppies in two months.

They are 15 weeks old. They shouldn't be randomly just roaming. Fence off part of the yard from the driveway.. get tie outs.. don't let them out unsupervised ever.. There are options, you'd just have to choose one and use it with the remaining living dogs.

update

Molly is doing much better with sitting as cars pass. Most of the time when she hears one approaching she will go to the side of the road and sit without a command. The really noisy ones are still of interest to her.

On the other hand we have developed a new problem. Molly is pulling really hard on the leash. When she was very young, 8-10 weeks old she walked so well on her leash. She is almost 4 months and is really pulling now. We saw the vet today for shots and he suggested I get a different kind of collar for walks. His suggestion was a choker collar. I am not real comfortable with that idea. When we were in puppy classes, they are over now, there was a 10 month old puppy who was pulling alot. They were using a collar with a piece that went over the muzzle and you hook the leash to that somehow. They also tried a harness. What works the best? What are the bonuses and drawbacks to each collar?

Thanks, Susan

I'm a big fan of a flat buckle collar and training honestly. I like the be a tree method. Dog pulls you stop, dog goes hey we aren't going anywhere looks at you often takes a step or more back into you you continue. For the first while you may not go further than half a block, but it works.

You have taught your dog to pull, so now you have to unteach it. The dog has found that pressure on the collar means that you get to go where she wants. It's been rewarding.. Now you need to teach that only no pressure is going to get you to go anywhere and it will take time. There is also the turn the other way method.. Dog pulls you turn 180 degrees and essentially 'leave the dog behind'.. dog catches up starts to pull you now go the other way leaving her behind again.

Training tools are just that, tools. Whether it be gentle leader, a no pull harness or a prong, technically you are supposed to be weaning off of it to walk normally without at some point. Many people don't though and use it as a bandaid. If you can teach without, why not try that first.

For some dogs, the method suggested above works really well. But for other dogs it just doesn't work fast enough for us humans to keep doing it consistently. If you can do it, that's wonderful, but if you ever get impatient or in a hurry and let your dog pull (even just a few steps), you will have rewarded him for pulling and just un-done a whole lot of training.

It's for these types of dogs that the training tools do help. The collar you were talking about from puppy class is a head halter. They're really helpful, and I use them a lot with dogs I train, but I rarely suggest one for a 4 month old - it works better for taller dogs and is easier to train on adults than on puppies. Harnesses are good and can also help with pulling - this may be your best option if you need one. The trick is, though, to get a harness where the leash attaches to the front of the harness, on your dog's chest. That way when he pulls, the harness will cause him to turn back toward you.

Okay, we tried this tonight. First I'll tell you our normal walk is a little over a mile and we can usually do it in 25 to 30 minutes. Of course she would be pulling almost the whole way. So tonight I started by circling the driveway and stopping everytime Molly put pressure on the leash. She responded just like you said, turned around and walked back to me. Around 7:00 we started walking up the road. It took 15 minutes to pass our property line, about 30 feet from the end of the driveway:lol-sign:. Huge distractions included birds, weeds blowing in the wind, barking dogs, lawn mowers, and two different neighbors who drove by and stopped to chat.

However, we persevered. At 8:20, my sweet husband pulled up in the van to take us home. We had made it almost half way around the block! Actually it may not sound like much but we accomplished a lot. Near the end, Molly was taking about 4-6 steps with me without pulling and one time we got up to 12 steps before she pulled. My motto: Celebrate the little Successes!

Thanks for the great idea. We will keep doing it until we get it right!

I think Molly may be one of those dogs this will work for. She showed some signs of success this evening during our unusually long walk. She didn't give up and neither did I! Thanks for the information about the head halter. Molly is a big girl already. At the vet today she weighed 24 pounds and is 18 inches tall from the floor to the top of her back. (Sorry, I don't know how exactly to measure the height of poodle) She will be 4 months old on May 28th. Anyway, I like the idea of having a harness to help with the training.

That little booger actually turned around and barked at me a couple of times because I had stopped and was not letting her pull. She is as ornery as the day is long. Thanks for all the help!

That is fantastic congratulations. I know you didn't go far, but continuing doing it is impressive and half the battle.

18 inches is pretty tall, but nontheless, she's very young and immature, and a head halter does take a bit of training and it's much harder on such a young dog.

Hopefully, with a lot more practice and persistance, you'll always be able to walk her on a flat collar!

UPDATE!

Wow! The tree thing really works, at least for Molly. We worked on it religiously for a week. Then her daddy went for a walk with us. He was so impressed with how well she walks on the leash now. She still pulls from time to time but just a little jerk back on the leash and saying her name sternly and she falls right back into place with us. We never even break our stride. Walks are a real joy for all of us now!

When we first started I would stop each time Molly pulled ahead or behind. Then when she noticed I was not moving I would guide her back to the right position, beside my leg. Then we would start walking again. Slowly we evolved to where I could just pull back or jerk on the leash to let her know she was getting too far ahead. I am really amazed how fast she learned to walk nicely.

Thank you, Thank you for all the helpful comments!!