Yesterday around 4 pm I went to take Iggy for a pee. I have been letting him out in the front yard for a few weeks now and he goes to the bathroom and runs back. He doesn't always come when I call him but does usually get off the sniff and move on to a new one where he goes to the bathroom. So as always the writing was on the wall I just put blinders on. To give myself a break I have never let a dog out to go to the bathroom off leash and expected him to pee and come back in. My dogs have always gone out on leash or into a fenced backyard where they did what they wanted and came to the door when they were done. I realize you have to give him some freedom to find the spot, maybe my new approach will be go and call back every minute or so until the find the spot. Anyway yesterday he went out and just kept going over the snow back gone. It took me a couple of minutes to go to the garage door and get shoes and coat on. By the time I got out to the driveway he was nowhere to be seen and the driveway was very very icy. I waddled out around the house and back building until I finally found him, took a couple of calls but he came to me, I didn't kill him :), I told him good boy and let go because of course I had no leash (no idea if I should or should not have put it on) and it was icy so we were both safest on our own.
After this I was in no mood to take him to class so he stayed in his crate the rest of the evening other than a short walk by my husband for bathrooms purposes.
I honestly don't think he is himself, by now he is usually whining to go out and I have not heard a peep from him. Today he will stay on leash, I will assess whether or not we will do anything other than leash walks and crate as the day progresses. I need to see him poop to make sure there is no obstruction and that's the problem. Part of me is very sad, pissed, upset with this turn of events part of me goes you know how to fix this and you will :).
We went for our morning walk. Amazing how the thought of letting him off leash crossed my mind, I wonder why knowing it was the wrong thing to do :). We did most of our walk on the buckle collar. At first we rewarded turning back to me on leash pressure with tugging, that worked well we did three reps. Then we worked on "close" walking with me, did about 10 feet he was good, need to watch he slowly starts to swing out, I imagine that's to look at me face. Then we did toy out in front release after 3 steps, then we did walk by the toy release back to it. All went well he tugged he worked never looking all stressed.
By this time we were at the end of the driveway, I just stopped and waited. His brain was definitely going down the trail behind their house. I waited until he turned away and tugged we did that 3 times, did some sit to tug and some downs. Once I had the brain it was all good.
On the way back I again did stop and wait for attention, it was probably taking about 15 seconds each time, I rewarded the first two but wanted better to keep tugging. I petted a couple of reps still the same so I took only one step before stopping again and the brain came back much quicker and I was able to tug. This made me all clarify what it is I want. I want when Iggy is on leash and I stop moving he should turn back to me, even off leash if I stop moving I would like him to check in and he is pretty good off leash.
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