Hello everyone,

I have had my beautiful Willow for about 1.5 years now. She originally came from a horrible home where she was badly abused. After quiet a bit of love and attention she finally started to trust people. I have never had a problem with her walking before but now she will only go a about 50 meters and just stops. I have tried taking her in different directions but she is only getting worse. Can anyone please help me. She loves her walks and gets very excited when she sees the lead but when we are out there she just doesnt want to go.

That is actually not an uncommon problem. Obviously there is no way to know exactly why each dog does this, but I feel that it's a "wait... I'm not sure I like this idea anymore... " kind of moment. When your dog stops, stop with it and sit down. Visit and pet your dog for a little while, then see if maybe it wants to continue. If your dog was taken from it's original home they may have used leashes to transport it around. So they may be a red flag. Just show your dog that you are not making it go anywhere it does not want to go, and eventually it will begin to trust the leash.

I had a similar problem with my dog where we'd step out of the yard & onto the road and she'd refuse to move. As I'd pull the leash she'd plant her butt on the pavement so she wouldn't budge. I'm not sure why she did this (the situation was very similar to yours), but my best guess was she wanted the whole "pack" to be together. I was walking her alone while my parents stayed home. I solved her non-walking sheerly by being more stubborn then she was. My dog is a really solid 45lbs on a small frame, and sometimes her collar slips over her ears, so it was a real struggle to pull her. But I showed her I was the boss. If she didn't want to budge, I made sure we went all the way around the block. She started cooperating after a few days.