Lunging at Cars!

Not sure if this is something anyone else has experienced but whenever we are walking on leash with Winnie (who is now 5 months) and a car drives by she tries to chase it! She goes from walking nice and calmly to complete lunging. I try to distract her but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I am so worried that if, god forbid, she ever got loose from her lead she would end up getting run over. Do you have any tips in how to deal with this?

Never had that problem but I heard once when a dog does that for someone to drive past and if the dog lunges at the car to either throw water balloons.. or squirt some very diluted lemon juice and water in its face ( out of a bottle with a trigger spray ) Not to hurt it of course ,but just to frighten it abit and stop it in it's tracks.
I was thinking though, maybe get Winnie to sit ,and for someone to drive past, and distract her with a treat, until she pays no attention to a car going past. But that's just my suggestion.. don't know if it would actually work!! I am sure someone will have some ideas.

I wouldn't spray her as this will just make her fearful, which she may associate with cars and might cause you problems later on. I like Vanessa's idea about making her sit, use a really distracting toy like a squeaky one and have a BIG supply of treats. Maybe have the car parked to start with and do some heelwork (walking to heel) around the car, make her sit in front of it, behind it etc a few times and give her LOADS of praise. Make it a fun fun game!

Next walk her a little way away and make her sit, get someone to start and car and very very slowly drive it past her (as slow as possible). If she tries to give chase try to distract her by calling her name and saying 'sit', if she still lunges at the car squeak the toy and using a treat try to get her to sit again. If she is too focused on the car then use your hands and put her back into a sit (push down her bum) and use the treats to keep her attention (put in front of her nose etc so she can smell). Keep repeating this and gradually speed the car up a little bit until she isn't bothered by it.

This should work, it will take some time but will be well worth it! Also try to do a couple of short sessions of this every other day or so, you dont want her to get bored and switch off!

Actually, its quite strange, because if a car drives towards her, she doesn't take much notice. If a car drives slowly, she doesn't pay too much attention but its when a car comes up from behind her quite fast, thats when she tries to lunge towards it and chase it. I have tried, when hearing a car approach, calling her name and getting her focused on me and giving her a treat but unfortunately she is just too focussed on the car. I will try the sit command and see if that helps. I can't quite make out though whether she's afraid or not because initially she looks a bit anxious and then goes into chase mode.

Yes I agree, more so with the distraction method,because really if you squirt her ,she might get scared of cars, which could be worse! But I remember hearing about that remedy so thought I would mention it ( personally I would not like water or balloons thrown at me!! )

You can only try to desensitise her. My 2nd Border Collie was the same & it used to scare the hell out of me. She'd see a car 100 yards away & just go.

What I did was, I sat her by the curb and everytime a car came I'd tell her to sit & distract her with treats. Once she was 90% with that I started to slowly walk her along the curb with the cars coming towards us on our side of the road (if that makes sense), again distracting with threats or using obedience commands. Then I did the same on the other side of the road so that the cars were coming from behind us.

I would say it took about a month of almost solid training to get her reasonably 'safe' with cars, and just worked on it every time I took her out after that. In the end she took no notice of cars at all.

I have done very similar to Caryll, moo hasn't any road sense whatsoever. I did little things like making her wait ie sit when we cross a road, seems simple to most but she just trys to cross the road with no worry of whats coming, I nearly have that to a t but its taken over a year. Think I will try the advise mentioned too, just dont think she will ever learn that if there is a fight between her and car she will come off worse!

thanks very much. I will get started on the training and give you an update in due course. fingers crossed!

iv got the oposite with memphis he tryes to run away from busses and lorrys

i dont have any issues with chasing cars - woody just tries to climb in them if someone happens to open a car door as we are passing them!

nicolalouises wrote:i dont have any issues with chasing cars - woody just tries to climb in them if someone happens to open a car door as we are passing them!

Same here with Hollie

My old staffy cross use to do this with motorbikes never with cars though

nicolalouises wrote:i dont have any issues with chasing cars - woody just tries to climb in them if someone happens to open a car door as we are passing them!

nicolalouises wrote:i dont have any issues with chasing cars - woody just tries to climb in them if someone happens to open a car door as we are passing them!

hhmm.... sounds like Jethro and your Woody were twins separated at birth!!

again distracting with threats or using obedience commands.

Caryll! I guess that could work, I would behave myself if u threatened me too!

Nosipho wrote:

again distracting with threats or using obedience commands.

Caryll! I guess that could work, I would behave myself if u threatened me too!