Newly adopted and obsessed with squirrels! Any advice please

Hi! I've had a search through the posts in this group and looked at advice elsewhere but thought it might be worth a fresh post in case anyone has any new bits of advice or guidance they can share 🙂

We've adopted a 2 year-old ex-racer and she's been living with us for four weeks now. She is a beautiful Brindle girl and we adore her! 🥰

We live right by a mountain bordering park which has been both a blessing and a curse - it's great to take her out in a leafy, green environment but we are seeing SO MANY squirrels on a daily basis that it's becoming something of a problem.

She's started picking up on which trees or areas she's more likely to see the squirrels (there are a few 😫) and she just plants herself there, on high alert, scanning and waiting...we've tried treats, which lure her away for a bit but within a few inches she's just back in the same mode. If we pull on her leash it just feels like we're dragging her, which feels awful for both of us. One time my husband had to physically lift her up as she would not budge.

I've tried keeping her leash short so I can keep her close to me (only works up to a point), putting a muzzle on her to deter her (that didn't work and felt horrible), taking a squeaky toy out to distract her (that only caught her attention for a short time), and the treats as I mentioned earlier but I can't exactly give her a ton of treats to lead her away on every walk.

Some days she's not too bad and whenever I think we're making progress - BAM - she reverts and it feels like we're back to square one.

We've tried going different routes but that would mean walking around the pavements in the village or on the side of a busy road, which just doesn't feel as nice. Plus, she also plants if we attempt to take her on different routes in the mornings, she's better in the evening somehow.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you 🙂