Afraid of walking on the leash & wet pavement!

[Zaedagirl]

We have an 11 week old male boxer. Ever since he was born he walked on snow. He was walking fine on the leash, but now most of the snow has melted so he refuses to walk on the wet pavement. He refuses to go outside & walk period! Is this normal? Please give any advice you may have on us helping him conquer his fear.

Thanks!

[ELubas]

All new things are scary to babies. Treats , happy voices, run backward and call him to you, and do not fuss over him, pick him up, etc. He will get over it. If you are confident he will be!

[kassa]

When teaching a new pup to walk on leash, it's usually easiest to simply follow the pup, rather than get the pup to walk with YOU (at least at first).

I'd try to take a favorite toy or something fascinating out on the pavement with you so that he's engaged in the object and not the thing around his neck.

It's important in the next few weeks that he get exposed to as many different surfaces as possible -- pavement, grass (hard this time of year!), woodchips, linoleum -- anything you can think of. It's one of the things a good breeder will have tried to start.

At 11 weeks old, I would not bring him out on public sidewalks or other places other dogs have been.

[kljarvis]

When we started training Hank on a leash, we let him do the walking. He was about the same age as yours, and now he loves it! Good luck!

[Zaedagirl]

I want to thank all of you, for the helpful information that we received. Zeus is walking fine on the leash now, he just dislikes puddles of water. He will walk around them or jump over them.

We also socialized him to all kinds of different surfaces i.e. pavement, grass, sand, dirt, woodchips, rocks, etc... He also got the opportunity to go to my sister-n-law's barn and run around the ring chasing horses. At first I was very hesitant, but my sis is a vet-tech & the horses were friendly and plays w/her dog also.

Zeus starts a puppy class next Monday.

Once again Thank You for your insight.