# Refusing to walk



## cap_wilks (Apr 24, 2020)

Cooper, our ten month old Vizsla, has recently begun refusing to walk around our neighborhood. When we first brought him home at 10 weeks we very slowly introduced him to walking with a harness and leash and gradually going further on our walks. 

For months and months we regularly walked our neighborhood daily without any issues. Starting about two weeks ago, when we get to the end of our driveway, Cooper lies down on the sidewalk and refuses to go any further. I've tried taking ahold of his harness and walking directly next to him to see if that would encourage him, but he just shakes and will try to either lay down or move back toward the house. No one else is around, nothing to me seems out of place or unusual, so I just don't understand what the issue is. More importantly, I have no idea how to fix it. I tried treats today and get the same result. 

For exercise, I've been bringing him to the local dog park, fields, and running trails, where he is perfectly fine. Just seems like whenever I try to walk him on a sidewalk in a neighborhood setting he simply refuses. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


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## Hazowecha (Sep 20, 2020)

Are there possibly a lot of scary halloween decorations up that might be new to him?


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## cap_wilks (Apr 24, 2020)

That's a good thought, but our house is actually the only one on our street with any decorations up 😂


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## rchik43 (Apr 12, 2020)

Is it getting cold where you are? My 24 week pup sometimes senses it is too cold and does not want to go out.


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## red106 (Oct 30, 2020)

Take my advice with a grain of salt cause I just got my V a couple weeks ago, but I was having problems with her stopping walking, being stubborn about what direction we went on walk, and not wanting to walk home (sitting down and not moving). We've been able to work through most of these with various training tactics using treats.

I taught her a variety of noises that indicate i want to go: 'this way' + hand motion to change direction, come, lets go, heel and other friendly noises to call her. we're still working through this but theres been great improvement. 

i really tried to not pull her when she was being stubborn but wait until she got bored and got up and went in the direction i wanted to go of her own accord. when i was having trouble with her not wanting to go home(sitting down not moving) i just picked her up and carried her home. then i realized if i put treats out on the stairs and she watched me do it she would be eager to come home to retrieve them! plus, we can practice leave it when i set the treats on the stairs as we're leaving. maybe you could pre lay out treats on the path from your house to the sidewalk before you try to take him out? 

I would also throw out the suggestion that you try figure out what exactly he wants. Not repeatedly, to reinforce the behavior, but walk in whatever direction he will let you walk in at first and observe. it may be that he wants to go a different way than your routine route? or try going down different streets if you always go the same way? If he leads you back to the house let him and try to figure out what he wants by watching him, water, food, treats?. this may lead to some clues on how to train it out of him. 

or it could just be that maybe his harness is hurting him?


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