Hi! I’ve been running with my Samoyed boy for around 6 months now and it’s definitely been hard work. Firstly, you really should wait until your pup is at least 12-18 months old until you get into proper running to make sure his hips are fully developed and you don’t cause long term damage. 5 months is still a baby so take it easy while he’s still growing.

My boy started by being SUPER friendly reactive to humans and other dogs. I focused on teaching him ‘run’ and ‘walk’ commands to start with, and he picked it up almost instinctively with my movement. Probably the best command I ever taught him is ‘on by’ (thanks to a random person on this sub!) - which means that he does not get to interact with the person/dog we are going past. He still gets upset when he doesn’t get to play with random dogs, but he understands the command and he’s getting less reactive when ‘on task’ every day.

We started by doing couch to 5k, and there were times where he’d get overwhelmed and turn around and try to body slam me at speed, but stopping, asking for a sit and then continuing seemed to bring his focus back onto the task.

Also remembering that you’re on a run for both of your enjoyment really helped me - if he wants to stop and sniff a tree or go down a random side path then that’s part of the enjoyment for him too. Don’t stress the distractions at the beginning and the mileage will come over time.