I have an 11 year old GSD Lana and an 18 month old GSD Holly, the 11 year old is perfect and they both get on brilliantly in the house. The problem I do have is walking them together, we have have had Holly since she was 11 weeks old and when we started trying to walk them together after her jabs she just whinned and cried her head off through the whole walk and when she got near Lana she tried to bounce all over her, after a few weeks of this I gave in and tried again when she was older, we got the same reaction at 6 months, 8 months right up until now.

Lana just ignores her behaviour and turns her back to her but holly will not calm down at all, I can make her sit and wait but the second we go to start walking again she is up on her back legs and nearly pulling me over so we never get off the front drive. Walking Holly on her own is fine it is just when we try with the older dog.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do to correct this and be able to walk them both together, I know exercise is good for me lol but I would like to cut it in half!

I have always walked my youngsters with the older ones right from the off (though they get some walks on their own so they don't get tom reliant on the adults), and the older ones ignoring or telling off soon stops their antics.

Why not try using  head-collar, then she won't be able to do this and you will have more control.

Might be an idea to get her used to it on her own first.

Always attach her lead to her collar too.

We have tried the head collar, she ends up spinning and kinda flipping on the thing and nothing will make her stop, I have tried tempting her to walk normal with treats, I tried to walk them at a distance, first off with Lana going first which sent her into a total frenzy and then with me going with Holly first and Lana coming out after and she just went into a frenzy again only in the op direction.

Holly also gets very anxious when Lana goes out for her walk, she throws herself at the door to try and get out after her EVERYTIME. I have had dogs my whole life and never ever had this kind of problem before :(

Do you walk them by yourself? Or does someone else go with you? It might be worth asking someone else to handle your older bitch and take control of the youngster. Every time she does a loopy just stop and make her sit, or go in the other direction. She will soon get the idea that she is to behave on a walk (hopefully ;-p )

It might be that you have to walk them separately; I've spent years doing separate dog walks so that the younger ones get enough exercise but the old ones don't get taken too far or too fast - it's time-consuming but it's perfectly possible.

When you try taking them together are you on your own with them, or does someone come with you?

I could never ever manage to get out the door on my own with them, I have my son with me when we try it, husband doesn't have the patience to deal with it.

I have walked off in the opposite direction and she is then quite happy to walk on her own as soon as Lana is out of sight, which defeats the whole object :( I have tried meeting up at the field and yet again as soon as she gets sight of Lana she is back to bonkers mad dog (hell hound).

Are they together all the time in the house? It sounds as if they're over-bonded with one another, and a bit more time apart from each other to have individual attention from the humans would be helpful.

They are together all day but at night the older one can't get up the stairs so they sleep on seperate levels, the youngest sleeps on the upstairs landing in her bed and Lana is downstairs in her bed, they eat in sperate areas as well, Lana in the kitchen and Holly in the utility room. Other than that they are together all the time and have a mad play hour in the evening, I only allow an hour of that and it is never allowed to get over the top. Also seperated for their walks!!! lol

In case it makes any difference both have also been spayed.

> It might be that you have to walk them separately; I've spent years doing separate dog walks so that the younger ones get enough exercise but the old ones don't get taken too far or too fast - it's time-consuming but it's perfectly possible.

True.  Even setting aside the fact that round here you're only allowed 4 dogs per person out on walks - I couldn't manage my 6 together anyway.  So I have to do separate walks.  Even if I just had 4 I would have to - Soli can't take much pavement walking on account of her terrible joints, and off-lead wise she's a pain in the backside for annoying River.

It is doable - in particular I find it much easier to pair Soli up with either Remy or Opi (as they are both calm outside, and she just badgers River constantly) for any lead-walking, then I have more control over her and she is calmer in herself.  Also the 300 peck method (one step with nice walking = treat; then two steps with nice walking = treat; then 3, on up to 300 - and going back to 1 if she pulls or mucks about) can be amazingly effective - I've done it a few times with Soli and although we've not gotten past 30 steps (because I rarely lead walk her), the calming effect of the training lasts for a long time.

Stick with it - Soli was just like your littlun when she got here (and she was a 5 year old, 42kg monster then) - jumpnig around, spinning, ragging the lead - she had me in front of traffic more than once doing that.  But perserverance and not letting them do it does pay off in the end, it just takes time.  Every time she mucks about, stop walking - and if you can reinforce the good behaviour she'll get the idea.

If it helps any, I also found that she was a nightmare on just a headcollar - but what really started her learning was when I started using a headcollar with a harness and a double-ended lead.  Two points of contact, if they pull/spin you can lift the leads up and they can't do it anymore, and easier to move them into position if needs be.  I'm doing a similar thing with my two newbies - although at the mo I'm just using a harness (halti harness so still two points of contact with the lead).  It's made a lot of difference already - doubly helpful for me as they are far too sensitive for most treats so as yet, I haven't been able to start clicker training them.

> If it helps any, I also found that she was a nightmare on just a headcollar - but what really started her learning was when I started using a headcollar with a harness and a double-ended lead.  Two points of contact, if they pull/spin you can lift the leads up and they can't do it anymore, and easier to move them into position if needs be.

I had to resort to that. Buster became quite a handfull when younger getting very over-excited at the sight of other dogs. He was friendly, just would jump about like a loony and spin about, making it hard for me to stay on me feet and in turn impossible to get calm enough to actually teach him anything The halti & harness combo worked a treat, allthough I also used his collar so had 3 points of contact (his strength was quite astounding & I felt more in control with the collar in use too).

Is this '4 per person' a rule for dogwalkers or everyone? My friend regularly walks all 8 of her Cavaliers together, and there's only 1 old girl that stubbornly runs off each time!

It may be a local byelaw. I used to walk 9 dogs together & wasn't aware of any laws then, I was a dog warden at the same time.

I know that in some areas with professional dog walkers like on Wimbledon common there were moves to stop them walking more than a certain number of dogs.

Didn't think this applied to peopel walking their own dogs, and especially on lead.