I was on my normal walk at the park this afternoon, also doing some basic training with Amber (10 month old GSD). (On leash) I had her on a sit stay, I was about 7 to 8 feet away from her and three older teenagers slowly walked by and she cringed as these teenager were yelling, screaming, pushing and hitting each other. My deceased GSD that just past away over 9 months ago (Brandy) would have sat there and watched them and that would have been it. Should I be concerned about Amber’s behavior or am I just over reacting to the way she responded? I have owned Amber since 12/28/2006 I have never had something like this happen before with this dog. However, yelling and hitting does not happen in this household either.

It could be her age. I would probably not worry about it since the kids were acting rowdy, unless you are seeing a pattern.

what do you mean by "cringe" ?

My pup acted fearful of new things (loud people, cars, etc) when he was young....like 10 weeks young. At 10 months...I dunno. There are some who say that this can happen during a dog's adolescence as well although I have personally never experienced it.

Has she been well socialized or was this the first time she's seen "nutty" people? What's her background? Where did you get her?

I would agree that its probably her age, and maybe the noise and jostling was something she wasn't used to and she just re-acted to it as something she hasn't been introduced to.
Kind of like the sound of a bus, or traffic or a car horn. If those sounds and actions are not something she's been introduced to she may have re-acted because she was unsure, and you, the pack leader, weren't close by.

New experiences are always going to catch a dog off guard.

Her age probably had something to do with it, but unless your dog is afull working dog, trained to deal with new things daily, you can't expect this young dog to not be afraid of these new things.

Puppies like children need to be conditioned, and trained that new things are not always bad.

Give her time.
Good luck

sheila m ryan~~~ what do you mean by "cringe" ? Example her head drops and she squints her eyes and flinches, cowers, crouches, ducks, or stoops lower down. That is as best as I can explain it Sorry.
John Aiton~~~ asked did she break the sit stay? No she did not, she did just what I said above but she stayed in her place and looked back and forth between me and the teenagers as she cringed.

To everyone that asked about Amber’s past owners and her life: I got her from a man locally Surprise, Arizona. He left her in the backyard or in the crate (Mainly Crate he said, because “she digs holes in my nicely landscaped backyard.&rdquo all day long and he sold her to me for a very cheap price because his hours at work were getting longer and longer, plus his girlfriend and him separated about 4 months before I got her and there was no one to care for her anymore, and he felt she needed a better home then what he could provide her with. So I took her. She had NO, and I mean NO training what so ever when I got her. She didn’t know one simple command; she didn’t even know how to sit. However she did know how to chew everything in site, even my husband’s brand new DVD player that wasn’t even 12 hours old still in the box that was sitting on table. Well I put a stop to that really quite I put her on a leash and I now bring her room-to-room with me and give her a bones and a Kong to chew on. In the Kong I put Creamy Peanut Butter in there. Then at night and when I leave the house she is in her crate and she has two bones in there to keep her busy.

IMHO, your new pup did really WELL to hold her sit-stay, despite the fact that those kids' unfamiliar ruckus upset her -- Just sounds like a lack of previous socialization by her first owner <:-(

If you can take this dog everywhere with you & expose her to all sorts of situations in a confident manner, I believe she'll soon learn to take loud people & unexpected scenarios in her stride <:-)

It sounds to me like she just is 1) young and 2) from her past she is not used to new and startling events happening around her. You have not had her too long so just keep up with the scocialazation and when these things happen, do not make a big deal of it to her. You need to act like nothing is wrong so she can feel your ease about the situation. when she see's you are not reacting and are at ease and nothing happend to her she will begin to feel more comfortable around loud obnoxious people and situations. I did this same exersise to get my GSD used to walking on a very busy road, on lead of course. After a time, she got to where even the loud car's and mototcycles do not bother her.