Suddenly started barking at cars etc

We have had Densil for 8 months now and when out walking he has totally ignored cars/cyclists etc, they never bothered him. All of a sudden - last week - he barked and went for a motor cyclist that went by. The last few days he has been walking fine most of the way, ignoring the traffic - then he will suddenly decided to bark/pull/go for cars/cyclists/vans - anything going by for about 5/10 minutes. I have tried telling him no/leave, and I have tried the distraction with the treat, but nothing seems to work. I just cannot understand why he has suddenly started doing this.

just bumping this up in case anybody else has had this problem and what they did to resolve it. Went back to basics today and put a head halti on him as well as his harness/lead. Worked fine most of the way and then he decided to go for a tractor and every car that followed it.

Have you thought about distracting him with a squeaky toy or even a clicker ? , he is seeing the cars etc as prey for a chase do you throw a ball for him on his walks or play games with him, this will take his mind of the cars etc, it really is about distracting him from doing it and tiring him out on his walk .

Had the same problem with Biscuit and cyclists after a kid nearly hit her with one... just began practicing the "watch me" command in quiet areas and slowly built up the trigger/distraction. She'll now walk down the cycle path without an issue You need to be really strict with it and treat every single time a car comes along initially, he'll soon learn that car = treat, you can then start to decrease the treats!

Also, with reactive dogs once they have seen their trigger once their adrenaline is up, every trigger after that is just another layer and they will get more and more reactive throughout the walk. Until he's familiar with the commands I would stick to quieter areas and slowly build him up, you need to get him out of the habit first

Thanks, will get a squeaky toy to carry with me and hope this distracts him whilst I give him a treat. Just can't understand why he has suddenly started doing it after we have been walking him for 9 months (he is 3 1/2 now). Also he does not have a ball as we haven't found one yet that he can't destroy he even chewed a piece of the black kong ball, and he hasn't yet learned to fetch or drop. I am taking him to training lessons for rescue dogs at the moment, but we have just learned the basics of name recognition, sit, down, wait and recall.

Be careful not to treat if he barks/whines/looks at a car or you will be rewardin the bad behaviour. only treat if it is TOTALLY ignored.

Went to the pound shop and bought some squeaky toys today. Took 1 out on the walk and as soon as a car came I squeaked the toy and when he spun around to look at me I rewarded him with a treat. This worked fine for a while until he got fed up with it and decided just to lunge for the cars again - really hard to distract him. Unfortunately I have to walk along a road where there are cars as soon as I leave the house, so can't start off in a quiet place. Guess I'll just keep trying to distract him.

Taking Densil for a walk yesterday was a nightmare. He would not be distracted at all and was lunging and squealing at the traffic. He was so hyped up he was even looking for cars when there were none coming. By the time I got home I was totally exhuasted and in tears - I just felt like I couldn't take him out for walks anymore and couldn't understand why he has started acting like this when we had been getting on so fine.

So, today I thought I would try something different. I always follow the same route for his walk everyday, apart from doing it in reverse sometimes. So today I just went in completely the opposite direction and took him somewhere new. He was so busy sniffing out all the new places that he just looked when a car went by but never reacted to them, so I rewarded him. We had a really good walk, so will try this again and keep going in different directions in the hope that this will cure him.

Still having problems with cars. Had to walk him to training class today and down a road with lots of cars passing, same coming home - there was no other route I could take. He was an absolute nightmare - would not take notice of any distractions - I tried all sorts of noises, even blowing rasberrys, and he was jumping up, twisting around and squealing and lunging at cars/vans or anything else that was moving. He nearly got hit by one car when he managed to cross in front of me and onto the road. At the moment he is a danger to me, himself and anybody else who happens to be nearby, and I am at my wits end as to what to do.

awww hope densil calms down. What advice does your trainer give? My dogs learning this at the moment but she's only a puppy so its alot easier. I treat her if she completely ignores a car, telling her to leave or watch me. its starting to work.

good luck