You can solve this... promise.
All mine used to be terrible, but I just couldn't handle it with young kids to sort out too, so I had to stop it. I think mine don't do it now because I don't give them the chance and because if they start getting too excited, nothing happens. I never walk at the same time everyday, so there is no expectation (although I appreciate that's not easy for everyone). I also don't have them around whilst we're getting ready - I tend to let them out into the back garden with no hint that we're going out and then we get ready, when we're ready - I go out of the front of the house and collect them from around the side of the house. You could shut them in a back room though if you can't do this. I won't put their leads on until they are sitting nicely and everything is done calmly.. basically if they start getting excited, I stand still and nothing happens until they are calm and doing what I ask..
I don't have to be as careful anymore because they know the score and that stuff doesn't happen unless they are behaving nicely.. so it is possible to get it all calm given time.. promise!!!!!!!! They don't pull to the car because if they do I stand still again. Normy used to squeal with excitement in the car constantly, so I used to stop the car (again it depends on your roads so you might not be able to do this
) and tell her to be quiet when she was quiet I'd carry on. They aren't allowed out of the car when we get to the car park until they have been quiet for at least a minute and are sitting nicely etc. I always used to keep them on their leads so they couldn't go nuts the second they escaped from the car and make them walk nicely on lead for a while before letting them off. I can let them straight out of the back of the car off lead now if I want to though, because they are calm about it. But if it starts getting crazy again I'll go back to keeping them on the lead for a while.
I think it's just about lowering expectation and letting them know which behaviour gets them what they want.. It does take time but six months of this should make life so much better for you, but it is a pain I know
You could try taking one at a time to the car and making each one behave nicely so they really get the message.
Dave sometimes gets seriously yappy at Normy when they first go off lead, so when that happens I let her off first and he has to walk nicely and he's let off when he's in a calmer state etc.
It's important to enjoy walks and know you can relax on them too and putting a few basic rules in place and a few weeks of being a bit boring
will start to improve it and given time they'll start to behave how you want them too then everyone gets to have fun on walks!
Good luck
Hannah xxx
