Link is now 5 months old, so into his first adolescent brat phase.

A few weeks ago he started this thing where he backs away from both his leash and harness. I'll ask him "ready to go outside?" excitedly and he knows what that means and drops what he's doing, gets up and follows me to the door. I'll have him sit, but then when I go to clip his leash or put his harness on he backs away and refuses. It's not based in fear, I'm almost certain. The body language and circumstantial evidence doesn't suggest he's afraid.

It's more he's just being rebellious.

If I use treats to lure him in, he will eventually give in albeit not in the first attempt. To get him to cooperate sometimes I'll just walk out the door and wait. When I return, he then gets it and allows me to proceed with the leash/harness.

To experiment I just set the harness and leash down on the floor and whenever he sniffed, approached, touched, etc....I clicked the clicker and rewarded him and he's fine. He easily allows me to clip him in during this clicker trial. He's not afraid of them or uncomfortable, there's just something about going to the door and then me trying to get him going that's not registering and it's frustrating, especially when time is critical and I need to get him out to potty. I know better not to chase him and it sometimes seems like he's initiating a chase game, but not always.

Anybody else have experience with something similar? Any tips??

Somehow it seems possible that some sort of negative association has been created and if so, I need to reframe it for him asap.

Cheers

Bodhi started doing this a year ago.
I haven't cured him completely.
But the best thing I've found is to just wait him out, staring without saying a word.
Finally, he will walk up to me and let me put the harness on.
I am not going to chase him.

How old was he when he started??

Two-three.

Whenever any of mine don't cooperate with getting harnessed and leashed up, I just put their stuff away and they don't go out. They learn real quick that way that games will get them ignored and outside time scrapped. Luckily I am home all day so I have the luxury of not being rushed or needing to do things on a specific timetable.

If they are at risk of pottying, which has never an issue because if they really need to go they don't play games, then I would put them in a crate for a bit so I don't have an accident.

That's good advice, thanks Val. He definitely gets excited to go out when prompted, and then his antics get in the way, literally.

I was thinking along the lines of what you're saying, but then I doubted the level of reasoning required to get that lesson. I'll have to keep in mind the linkage of his choices/behavior and the consequences.

I haven't had this problem, but I would say if you are luring him in with treats make sure not to actually give him the treat until he does exactly what you want (ie has the harness and leash on), otherwise you are just rewarding his apprehensiveness. When he does put the leash and harness on do give him treats and reward him and all that so he associates these items with happy times. Maybe try petting him with the leash or something like that so, again, he can associate them with good feelings. But again, I've never had this problem so take this advice as you will, ha!

Nanook has started doing the exact same thing except he doesn't even come for a treat. I can not think of anything that caused it, he use to love going for walks... I just do not take him out when he does it, hopefully he is just going through a phase. I do not want to get into the chase him around the house game so we have not been on a walk in a week. He did come very close for watermelon the other day...lol..so close but then he looked at me like he caught on to me at the last second and bolted.

Ha, I always wonder if Nanook is doing the same things because of their exact same age.

I'm noticing it is getting easier if I get him in his harness and clipped to his leash away from the door and in the living room. He is not so prone to play the game there. Such an interesting little quirk.

I tried to get his harness on this morning away from the front door and it worked.!He still resisted a little but he didn't bolt LOL..so we went on our first walk in over a week. I purchased the front clip harness a month ago and hurt my back that very day so I got to use it for the first time today and OMG what a difference it made in his pulling. I have to work on getting it to fit right still but I love it ;-)
Thanks for the idea to do it away from the door, who would have thought a simple thing like that would help!

Awesome, glad that helped. And yes, the front clip harness is a gem. I think Link can feel the difference himself and knows when he is and isn't allowed to pull ahead.

Trailtoad1 wrote:

I tried to get his harness on this morning away from the front door and it worked.!He still resisted a little but he didn't bolt LOL..so we went on our first walk in over a week. I purchased the front clip harness a month ago and hurt my back that very day so I got to use it for the first time today and OMG what a difference it made in his pulling. I have to work on getting it to fit right still but I love it ;-)
Thanks for the idea to do it away from the door, who would have thought a simple thing like that would help!

Murphy started doing this too, about a week ago. He's about 1 year old. As soon as he'd see the leash in my hand, he'd go crazy hyper and bolt. I played the treat game with him for about 2 days, but it didn't really work very well. Getting him into his harness was even worse. But like you, I noticed that if I clipped is leash on in another room, he was completely calm about the whole thing. Also, if I put his harness on him in another room, he's not fully calm, but he doesn't fight me on it either. So for now, I've taken to keeping the leash and harness hanging in the next room, instead of by my back door. Whatever works and puts him at ease is good for me.

I know I'm dredging up an old thread here but did any of you figure out a way to end the leash game?? Orion has been doing it for months now and it is well past ridiculous! He won't accept his standard leash, his long line, obedience leash/collar or harness it is all one hell of a game to him. He loves walking and as soon as he is clipped up he can't get out the door fast enough but man is getting any kind of leash on him a drama! I've tried luring with treats, I've tried making him sit and using his wait command, I tried the different room trick but he caught on and that just resulted in zoomies throughout the house, In the evening's I will just wait him out (I literally have to get the leash out an hour before I want to go) it is madness. Unfortunately I can't wait him out in the morning's since I have to go to work and I refuse to leave him for nine hours without a decent walk first lol so I usually end up stuffing a leash in my pocket and initiating a game of chase and wrestle then I can tackle him and clip his leash on without him noticing   
I'm not entirely sure where this behavior came from since I was always very careful to make the leash and walkies a positive thing. Does it by any chance disappear one day? Or is there anything I can be doing differently that will stop him?

Zomg's! Okami has been doing this exact behavior for about 3 months or so. No fear at all, just seems to be rebellion. So out of defeat, I have been trying many ways to get her to let me leash her. I had a breakthrough last night with the oddest trick I did.

She is an attention whore to put it bluntly. So I thought to myself, maybe I am just fueling the fire by giving in to trying to chase her, capture her and give her treats to lure her (I treat during bad behaviors as a last resort, and at a time of impatience sometimes and after I get the desired result out of her, never before)

Anyways. I said, "Do you want to go outside?" like I normally do and her normal bit of excitement showed me that she did. So I go to leash her, she runs off per the usual. And it hit me. I just started ignoring her. I turned my head in the other direction from where she was and held perfectly still. She started howling at me and ran to the side I was looking and I immediately turned my head to the other direction. After a few times of me making sure she knew I was ignoring her, breakthrough. She came up to me and rubbed up against my hands and sat. I continued not to look at her as I gently and slowly (not too slow because too slow sets off her prey drive) grabbed her collar so I can attach the leash, and we went outside. I have only done this method once so I don't know if it is effective yet, but I am pretty pleased at the results of the first try.

This is unbelievable - about 10 days ago I started to notice that Ami was staying just out of arms reach in the morning after I let him out of his crate. This is first thing in the morning, he has been crated for 8 hours and this is his first walk of the day followed by breakfast - usually he's an eager beaver. I was able to change the behavior by going to a different door - the door that leads from the shop (where he spends his overnight) and into the 2 car garage -where, incidentally, the cat spends her nights. Now, that is a reward (no cat, cat gets let out before the wolf makes his appearance  ) - he knows she's there, somewhere, "I can smell it...."

Oh this has been Mishka lately. He loooves his walks but he will not let me put leash, harness, collar, etc. on him. The other night it went on for so long I just gave up and we didn't go on a walk. The only thing that works is if he thinks we're going in the car, but even that doesn't always work. I don't chase him either. I'll just wait by the door for him to come closer and after 2-3 attempts at leashing/collaring/harnessing him, I give up and he gets no walks.

I'm glad I'm nit the only one with this issue lol. This morning I tried a new tactic, Orion sleeps in the laundry and without fail if I am more than 5 mins late getting up he will start to "sing" so this morning I was up all prepared for walkies with his leash in my hand then I waited by the laundry door. Sure enough the singing started so I opened the door - he immediately plonks himself into a sit (he has been taught to sit and wait at every door or he does not get through) I clipped the leash on, gave him a treat, took him out for a toilet stop then off walkies we went
He sulked for a bit and looked so betrayed at being tricked lol but it worked for today atleast

Link got better at the leash game around a month or so ago. In our new house there isn't as much room by the door for him to run around and play tricks so it sorta spells business time with him much better.

If we let him out into the yard, especially, and corral him by the gate he is much more accepting of the leash and his normal walking harness. Not 100% by any means because he still runs around the yard a bit...more so with his hiking harness than his walking harness, but it got a lot better.

You'll eventually just learn the habits and the signs and figure out how to strategically outsmart them and make it better.

But yeah, the leash game. Not my favorite characteristic at all.

Glad it's better. It also sounds like the new house is feeling like home, glad to hear that too!