Dog suddenly scared of going on walks

Question
Hi, I have a 2 year old beagle who has recently become fearful of going on walks. She will usually walk if both my husband and I take her on a walk, but if either of us try to take her alone she puts her tail between her legs and pulls to go home, even though her nails are scraping all over the pavement. We use a harness, and I'm afraid she is going to escape it if I try to pull her.
This happened after she had surgery and didn't go on a walk for about a week. We occasionally hear coyotes in our neighborhood at night, so we are wondering if maybe she smells them and gets scared.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Hi Kayla.  Let's put the walks on hold for a couple of weeks until you can work through some of the fear issues.  Get some really high value food treats together - leftover chicken, beef, pieces of cheese, hot dogs - all cut up so they are no bigger than a pea. Put them in a fanny pack or pouch you can carry with you.  Just before dinner or breakfast (whenever the dog is hungry), put her harness on and go just outside your front door.  

If you have a driveway out front, this is a perfect area to work in.  Walk around in the driveway or front walkway area feeding these tidbits of food by tossing them on the ground in front of her.  If she doesn't see them fall, you can point them out to her, telling her to "find it".  You are not actually going to leave your property, just walk in circles if necessary, dropping the food on the ground.  You are going to condition the dog to accepting being outside on her harness, on leash, and having it be a safe, pleasant experience.  She doesn't have to do anything to earn the treat. She can use that great beagle nose and find good stuff.  When she's using her nose, she's gaining confidence and will feel safer about being outside.

Very gradually and only when she's happily finding the treats on the ground in front of your house, you can start to move down the sidewalk.  This may take days or a couple of weeks and you have to move at the dog's pace - not at the pace you think she should be moving.  When you first start to move down the sidewalk, do lots of U-turns so that you move back toward the house frequently.  So, the first day of working on the sidewalk, you might just move back and forth in front of your house.  The next day, add a house, etc.  But again, only when the dog is happily scarfing up the treats that you're dropping.

As you work through this classical conditioning process, you can start to decrease the frequency of treat dropping.  Any time you see her tuck her tail or freeze, you know you've gone too far too fast.  Head for home, make note of what happened and try again the next day stopping before you get to that point.

Classical conditioning can be a slow process depending on how severe the fear reaction is and how long it's been happening.  There is no set timetable.  Your dog will tell you when she's ready to progress.  In the meantime, forget the walks and find other ways to exercise her.  Each time she has a bad experience on a walk, it's making the problem worse.  

Please let me know if you have any questions or need clarification on what I've recommended.  Good luck!