Some faith restored!

Decided to jump in the car with the "hooligans" today and take them to a near by country park we hadn't been to in a while. The whole way there was total chaos, the two of them just howled and cried and barked for the full 20mins, Leroy chewed thru his seatbelt and tried to jump in the front then started trying to chew off Diesels and as you can image i just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry! I know its just all the excitement but there is just no calming them down!! Finally got parked up, got them out of the car and it was just hyper craziness, two off them pulling like mad, Leroy makin that staffy noise (cry/howl/bark thing) So we sat down on a bench not far from the car to try and calm them down....after about 10mins they seemed to have calmed down so went to continue on our way....False Alarm! I managed to get Diesel to calm down and walk nice and after 5mins of this rewarded her by letting her off, but the whole time my oh had Leroy he was just pulling like crazy, paws barely touching the ground and panting like a crazed beast! After a while he started to calm down a bit, so decided to put him on his long line....started off keeping it quite short but the better he was the more line he got, until finally he seemed in a reasonable state of mind and he was coming back every time he was called and we let the lead trail on the ground.

After all this craziness and me honestly being so close to just putting them back in the car and going home. They were both SSSOOOO good, Leroy came back everytime he was called, and was only going so far in front of us before either stopping or coming back to us without a shout! Was so proud of him.
Even Diesel was back to coming back and not venturing off miles ahead as she had been lately.
So its good to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel and they are good dogs, just need to work on their excitement levels and try and get them to calm down quicker!

That sounds like great progress Moo can be a mare on the lead, but off she is fine, perfect recall if needed. Keep at it Xx

Aww, I'm glad they settled down in the end! Must have been frustrating at first!

It can just be so emabarrassing sometimes, you pull up to the park and all around you are people with their labs, spaniels collies all quiet and very well behaved and they'r all starin at you as you sit in a car with two crazy dogs howling and barking like mad, and then you get pulled down the car park with them, it just seems like such a bad advertisement for Staffies. I just hope everyone can see they'r just happy and excited

I think most people will look at a happy dog and forget the breed. When a dog's happy it gives off this really excitable vibe that just makes a lot of people smile.

Diesel does usually get classed as a happy friendly dog when people meet her and usually "very excitable" as she's piddling away at their feet

am probably just worrying over nothing, just too self conscious

Aww I'm so happy things have improved

This may be the wrong thing to say but your post made me laugh - very sweet how you described the two hooligans going bonkers in your car. I can relate. Rupert can be overexcited too but I would hate to have a really placid dog, if it came to it.

Glad it's going a bit better

It can b funny sumtimes like coz its total choas but like u said id hate havin placid dogs too

I have the same issue with the girls at the beach

Rocky is quite excitable in the car too, but once we are at the park he is fine and calms down very quickly. I think it is just the excitment of being out and about.

I remember seein a thing on one of the dog trainy shows on tele, where they covered up the windows til the dogs were quiet then uncovered it an if they started gettin excited cover it back up an so on...was thinkin of tryin this...what do u think?

I'm sure they were just excited to be going for their walk, but like you I'm always aware that my dog is a staffie and try to set a good example for the sake of the breed's reputation.
Glad they settled down though.
Afraid Bacchus's recall is almost non-existent when he wants to say hello to people LOL ( emoticons still not working since I got this new laptop ???)