When our pup was 5-6 months old on a visit to the vet had a traumatic experience with a stranger. Is there anything we can do to help him? Or is this going to haunt him forever?

Question

I have just googled for information on how to train puppies to not be afraid of some people, and one website made reference to your website.

    I am so hopeful that you can offer advice for our beloved puppy. We have a French bulldog/Pug mix that will be 1 year old in January. We bought him when he was 8 weeks old and he has been a wonderful puppy, maybe sometimes a bit hardheaded, but the sweetest most loving and personable dog we?ve ever had. He started out very friendly to everyone. But last summer when he was perhaps 5-6 months old on a visit to the vet (where Eli has always loved to go), a man also visiting the vet with his pet was very excited to see our puppy. The man was very physically expressive to Eli but seemed to evoke fear in our puppy that day toward this stranger. I may be wrong, but we seem to think that we can trace his fear of certain males back to that occasion.

    Over this Christmas season, our daughter's friends from college stopped by at different times. Sometimes there were several friends, both male and female, here at the same time; but, 1 or 2 of the young men totally left Eli very fearful of them even though they did nothing to evoke fear. We gave the young men some treats to offer Eli, but Eli still seemed afraid. Of course, at the same time there were other strange young men here in the house who Eli was very excited to see so he would run up to them, lick them and want to spend time with these fellows. We could not figure out why the other fellows made Eli so afraid.

    Tonight my husband and I left the house for a short while and Eli was here with our daughter and one very nice young fellow. He was hoping to enjoy Eli but Eli was very fearful of him. Unfortunately, the young fellow chased Eli around the sofa and our daughter said that Eli cowered in a corner of the kitchen shivering which just breaks our hearts for our puppy and sad for any friends who drop by.

    We've not yet taken him to obedience school. I?ve thought that perhaps that might make a difference. We hate for Eli to be so fearful of certain people. Is there anything we can do to help him? Or is this going to haunt him for the rest of his life? We sure would love to be able to help him.

    We would certainly appreciate your wisdom and look forward to hearing from you.

    Jill
Matthews, NC

Accepted Answer

I’d recommend you read some of our eBooks. There is one on Who Pets My Puppy.

Most people mistakenly think that everyone and anyone should touch, pet and play with your dog. I find that this causes many problems. Our dogs look to us as leaders (or they should) and when we let them down by allowing strangers to get in the space and scare them then they lose confidence. When I see people approaching me and my dogs, I say “Please Don’t Pet or Stare at my dog, he’s in training.” That usually does the trick. Eli will begin to relax because he will realize that you are not going to let people from outside the family pack get in his space and make him feel worried.

I’d recommend reading on our website about Pack Leadership and Structure.

I’d start with our Groundwork program.

Pack Structure for the Family Pet

Having confidence in your leadership will help Eli with his fear, not putting him into more stressful situations when he isn’t equipped to cope with them. If you do decide to go to obedience classes I’d recommend teaching him all the exercises at home first. We would never take an untrained dog to classes full of other dogs and people and expect him to learn there. We only use group classes as a training tool ONCE the dog is already trained. Basic Dog Obedience.

I would direct you to the search function in the upper left corner of the website for any additional questions you may have.. If you type in your key words it will guide you to articles, Q & A’s and posts on our forum. This is a very common issue with dogs, especially young dogs.

I hope this helps.

Cindy