My pup is very nervous by nature and has really struggled getting confidence for walks
Even with very positive socialisation, she’s just improved very slightly.
This last few weeks she’s come on strides, started taking rewards outside (occasionally) and generally walking infront quite comfortably but today we went for a walk around our block and it went pear shaped
She got 3/4 of the way around confidently and happily but then there just seemed to be loads of people, two on bikes Speeding up the pavement we had to avoid, a loose dog running freely into the road that started screaming when it was picked up, too many cars to cross the road safely and create space in time and then a baby screaming it’s little lungs out
We had about 2ft to walk before we had a safe crossing space to head back home and by that time she’d completely shut down and frozen, her tail was just tucked under her and she was petrified, couldn’t move and wouldn’t even look at me
I sat on the side of the road for about 10 minutes with her until she was willing to take a few steps and cross over the road but she was still really reluctant to move even after that long and all the hustle and bustle subsiding
She doesn’t recover quick, she’s flighty and it doesn’t take much to knock her confidence
Once we got back into our street she was fine, happy to walk down to the bottom, cross and walk back up to our house but now she just seems really disengaged and upset
She is six Months old in a week and I really wanted her to go into it with confidence so that fear stages didn’t knock her more than necessary
I just hope that by tomorrow she’s feeling a bit better and is happy to try again
submitted by /u/PuzzledRegister6258
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