I’m sorry this response is so late! Please try an easywalk. They are 19.99 amazon and are amazing! Dot just walk your dog with it but use it as a training tool. When my dog pulls the easywalk naturally turns her around. When she stops pulling I have her sit. Then give her a treat.

Big hugs to your dog. He sounds like a very wonderful boy.

Well, first of all, to answer your questions…
He is very old now and has arthritis, so we try not to walk him too much, because we figured out he will end up limping afterwards. If he is walked too much. However, we have a very big yard and we play with him until he gets so tired that he either falls asleep or just lays in his bed for a while until he has regained his energy. There’s eight people in my family (including me), so he usually gets plenty of people time, although it has decreased since we got a cat, but I have been trying to give my dog extra attention because I don’t really get along with the cat. My dog is usually leashed outside for an hour, varying slightly depending on if he guilts us into bringing him in or not. He is almost always supervised outside, but for the very rare occasions where he is not, the tree isn’t very far away from the house anyways and he can even sit on the porch. Where we can simply glance through the window to see how he’s doing. He is comfortable in the garage, and we make sure it’s warm and that he has food, water, a bed, an area for himself so it doesn’t feel cramped, and that anything that he can get into is put somewhere out of his reach. He is put in the garage as a form of punishment for running away or something similar, and the main reason he doesn’t like it is because he is seperated from people and he can’t have attention, which as a Lab, he likes to have a lot of. However, as I said earlier, his punishments usually don’t last very long as he knows exactly how to make us feel guilty until we bring him back in, or sit out in the garage with him and give him attention.

And, second of all, about the story…..
That story actually brought tears to my eyes because I’m worried that one day the same thing will happen to my dog. This story actually helped me out a lot, seeing how things could turn out, and it helped me figure out what I can do to help my dog out. Thank you so much. This website has been incredibly helpful.

What is his daily routine like? How much exercise does he get in a day? How much people time does he get in a day? How long is he leashed outside to a tree? Is he supervised when he is leashed outside, or just left there by himself? Is he comfortable in the garage at night? Why is he kept in the garage at night?

When I was young, we had a great family dog who kept running away. Here is his story.

I still feel very sad when I think about him today.

Today I was outside with my dog and my family. It got late and I decided to bring my dog in, and thinking that because I was walking with him, I took him off his leash that was tied to the tree, and told him to go inside. Normally he listens to this command, but as soon as we got about five feet from the door, he bolted and ran away, which he has suddenly been doing recently.

My dog is an eleven year old Labrador Retriever, and also the sweetest dog I have ever met. He has never once bitten anyone, growled at anyone, jumped on people, or shown any type of aggression, even when dealing with my little brothers (age 8 and 10) who are not exactly” gentle” with him. He does not have many behavioral issues, other than it being virtually impossible to walk him on a leash, and the biggest problem of his that has gotten very bad as he gets older, which is that he runs away.

My family uses the “reward training” method. When he behaves well, we reward him with praise and/or treats, but if he behaves badly, during the day he is put outside on a leash, and during the night he is put in the garage. We have only used the “adversive training” method once with a zap collar, but we always made sure that the setting was never too high and we even tested it out on ourselves to make sure that it didn’t hurt him too much. That method seemed to work very well, but the zap collar broke and we haven’t used it since.

I really don’t know what to do with him. He is running away almost daily now, and I’m worried because it has not only become a disciplinary problem, but is now a question of his safety. When he runs away, he swims in a lake and after he returned home one day, we noticed that he was in a lot of pain, he wouldn’t wag his tail, and couldn barely sit down. We immediately took him to the vet and found out he had acquired “limber tail syndrome” from the lake, which is common in Labrador retrievers. It goes away after a couple of days, but it was undeniably painful for him and I don’t want to see him go through something like that again.

I don’t know why he has been misbehaving so much as he gets older, but he no longer listens to any commands we give him, such as sit or stay, and he barely even comes when he is called. The only reasons I think could be the cause of it is that a.) he is getting old and tired and does not have the energy to do what is asked of him, or b.) it is because we recently got a cat and he is acting up because he is not receiving the same amount of attention he once had and is jealous.

I care a great deal about him and it just breaks my heart to see him asking this way. Do you have any advice on what to do? At this point, I am completely out of ideas.

Thank you for your kind words. I hope you will write that article. I’ll look forward to reading it.

I think the temptation of a quick-fix creeps in for everyone. The fog which tells me I’m really doing the dog a favor by causing it pain.

When I get frustrated or lazy or domineering…I see that, thanks to loving & working with a dog.
I train as the best person I am. Which shows me areas I need to improve to become a better human. It’s part of how this dog rescues me.

Wow! So very well said. I very much feel the same way. “How My Dogs Rescue Me” – that would be a fun article to write. 😀