5 m/o hates his harness

[tamapup]

My 5 m/o absolutely hates getting his harness put on to go outside. I'm quite puzzled as to why, and how to fix this. When I take out the harness and say "let's go for a walk!" he runs and hides from it. Eventually I get a hold of him and put it on. While I put it on he pins back his ears and looks unhappy. As soon as it's on, though, he shakes himself off and runs to the door all excited to go outside. He loves going out for walks. 

I've checked and re-checked the harness itself and how it fits on him, and it seems fine. No tightness anywhere. He seems perfectly comfortable in it when we're outside as well - it's just the putting it on that's the problem. I try to do it with lots of praise and petting to make him comfortable, but he still hates it. He hasn't had a bad experience with it before, to my knowledge. Not sure what's going on - any ideas? 

[GentleLake]

I can't begin to guess why Tama has this reaction to the harness, bu my recommendation would be the same kind of desensitization and counter-conditioning you'd use to teach a dog to accept a muzzle.

[jami74]

Our boy is the same, hates having it put on but is excited to see it as he knows it means an outing and fine once it's on. We've done lots of gentle desensitizing and he tolerates it better. I think the two bits that have bothered him are having it put over his head and the click sound of it being fastened so we do it as quickly and quietly and matter-of-factly as we can.

[D'Elle]

Just do a desensitizing protocol the same as you would for anything else, as GL suggests. 

[PuppyMavis]

Our dog also does not like having her harness put on or taken off. It was especially troublesome as a puppy when she had head shyness and body handling problems. One thing we did was make it a part of our daily training and gave it a name. We'd say "Let's get dressed!" and use treats and desensitization as other have mentioned. It became another one of her "tricks".

[ShellyF]

Sometimes their fur gets caught in the Velcro which can cause a weird tingle. 

[KevTheDog]

@tamapup Ha maybe Kevin and Tama are distant cousins - Kevin is this way too, and it's so weird! I would think he'd associate getting his harness on with getting to go outside, because he never does anything fun (like chase the ball in the courtyard) without his harness on. This behavior has evolved for him a little bit; he tends to look like a sad, resigned bunny as he's having the harness put on by me, but not by Joey (?? why Kevin, why!?). He will walk slowly away from me as I follow him calmly around the apartment in an effort to put it on him ("If I walk slowly, she won't think I'm trying to escape"). Joey is the harness putter-onner most days, so maybe that has something to do with it.

In any case, long story short: this behavior was worse before and is a lot better now; it was just kind of a slowly-but-surely thing for us. Certainly a desensitization protocol would make the process go by faster. He's more or less ok with it all now. Keep us posted on Tama!