(Sorry long post, any advice is welcome)
My family adopted M(7) 3 years ago. She is a rescue Galgo so understandably anxious and apprehensive. We already had a Galgo O(16), who passed a few days ago.
When we adopted M, she was much less anxious than how O started. So we thought we’d be able to relax her and adapt her to life with us way easier. But in those 3 years she hasn’t seemed to have gotten much better. She relied heavily on O to comfort her. O completely trusted us in the end, literally no anxiety she was so comfortable and happy around us, didn’t fear we would cause her harm.
M, on the other hand, grumbles and barks, needs space but also is clingy. She will bark and run away if you sit on the other end of the sofa when she’s laying down, only to return to the sofa 5 minutes later. M is only fully comfortable with my Mum, but unfortunately due to family problems, I have been near enough the sole dog carer for her for the past year.
They had never been separated, and would refuse to walk seperately. As a result, the past year as O was getting older and struggling more, M wasn’t getting as much exercise as she could’ve (every other day she’d get an off lead run, but besides that she’d be walking at the pace of a very slow and senior dog).
Sadly, 4 days ago, O had to be put down. M seems to be coping much better than expected. She seems almost exactly the same, besides occasionally looking around the house for O for the first couple of days.
I feared I would no longer be able to walk M, as she would only ever come to the door when O did. However, I have managed to get her out without too much difficulty. The actual walks have been more of a struggle.
The routine, we leave the house and walk 50m down the street, in this time she is happy and walking beside or in front of me. She does a wee and a poo, a bit of sniffing. After that, she digs her heels in and stops walking. The past two days, I’ve said words of encouragement and a bit of dragging, and after another 50m she snaps out of it and the rest of the walk goes smoothly.
This morning, however, she did not snap out of it. Half an hour of dragging her along, thinking she will eventually snap out of it and start enjoying her walk. Then eventually I gave up, as soon as we turned around, she is walking fine and very happy to walk in front or beside me. Stopping to sniff and wee on things, behaving like a normal dog should.
What can I do to fix this? I know I shouldn’t drag her, the first two times seemed to overcome this mental block she had, so I thought it was worth it. This time it didn’t work so I had to give in. Didn’t want to keep causing her distress which could set her back. My issue is, if she digs her heels in and then we go home, she will learn she can do that may do it all the time. She loves walks, genuinely really enjoys them, but something is kicking in about 50m in where she decides she wants to go home.
Will add, treats don’t work, she doesn’t take a treat on a walk.