Hello all, I recently (about 9 days ago), adopted a wonderful Australian Cattle Dog mix from my local animal shelter. He is 7 mos old and has been an absolute pleasure so far!
One thing that has been strange though... he loves to go for walks around the neighborhood and parks. However, several times during each walk, he will just sit down or lay down in the middle of the sidewalk or sometimes in the middle of the road! He'll plop down and refuses to budge. I'll tug on his harness, but he just digs in and fights against it. There have been one or two times I've actually had to lift him back onto his feet to get him walking again. At first I thought it was that he was tired, but it sometimes happens just a few minutes into a walk, and he is full of energy as soon as I get him going again. Now I'm thinking maybe it's adoloescent, stubborn behavior. For instance, if we're walking and he wants to veer off and go sniffing down an alley, I'll tighten his leash a bit and keep walking. Instead of following he'll just sit down and look down the alley. If I walk down the alley he'll get up and follow me, but if I try to go any other direction he won't budge.
Again, I've only had him for just over a week so I don't expect him to be perfectly behaved, but I worry about this habit because as I said, sometimes he'll do it as we're crossing the street and I'm worried about cars hitting him if I can't move him. Also, I don't want to force him to walk if it might be a health problem... perhaps he really does just get tired very easily?
Anyone have any advice?
