Scared of traffic

[Adelle]

We have just adopted an 18 month old male - Finn. I have had him for only 5 days now. He was a country dog in the past and had several acres to run in, and is obviously not used to leashed walks. We live in the suburbs and our yard is not fenced right now but it will be soon, our street can get very busy during the day. The first few days on our walks I knew he was a little bit shy of traffic but it was not a big deal and we continued on our walks. But the last 2 days he is much more nervous of the traffic, especially if it gets farily busy. This morning he dug his heels in and would not move and then when I finally got him going he dragged me the whole way home, normally he does not pull on the leash but when he is scared like this he does. And this boy is strong. We are going to start obedience training soon so we will work on his leash walking but how do I get him to ignore the traffic and feel more comfortable around it, so as our walks are more fun. Some days I take him to the park and he does not have to worry about traffic then but I will always need to walk him around our town espeically when the nights get darker and we cannot make it to the park in the evening.

[cashisking]

I don't have an answer, but maybe it is a trust thing, You two have only known each other a short time, and it is possible that it will take some time to build up trust in you, busy traffic is alot to deal with when you are already in a strange environment, tied to you no less.. Is the street always busy, maybe you could rechedule your walks to a non peak traffic time for awhile and ease him into it. Good luck