I have a 4 year old black lab mix. He knows all the basic obedience commands, and I do drive and focus work with him, as well as retrieving.

The issue I've been having of late is him not following a command readily. It's not your basic sit or down commands. It happens when he is inside, and doesn't want to go outside. I say "outside", and he slinks down as if he's trying to hide. As I walk toward him he gets up and goes outside. I have 3 other dogs, and so I have a routine of letting them out at certain times. Otis, the lab, will also hide in his kennel when he knows the time to go out is here. He'll then ignore me when I say "outside" (by the way he knows 100% what outside means). I have to then approach him and send him out. When he's doing this his body language is very submissive and he looks scared. I haven't corrected him for behaving this way because of his body language.

I was thinking of positively reinforcing the commands so that even though he doesn't want to go outside, he knows he'll be rewarded. I'm also wondering if this is a subtle dominance move on his part. Is positive reinforcing the way, or is this an issue where correction for disobeying appropriate? He's very good when in the house, and generally follows my commands well.

Acting scared is not dominance.

Acting scared is the result of a bad experience. Either something happened outside that made him not want to go there, or you have dragged/forced him at some point in time making him even more reluctant. Or he can see in your body language that you're annoyed with him for not listening, or combination of all of the above. If he's gun shy/thunder shy/fireworks shy and he got spooked outside then that can be one reason for him not to want to go.

Seeing he is 4 years old and you are only now trying to solve this problem, I am going to guess that either he is a rescue and you got him recently, or something happened recently to spook him and instill this problem?

Peter, I think positive is the best way to go. No command for now, start off with some play and fun upbeat OB inside or outside, then move to the door while inside and if he goes through on his own without any command or prompting, mark and reward(yay!). If he doesn't, use physical cues like putting a foot forward as though you are going outside, or go outside and see if he follows you, or lure him with a toy or treat to get a paw on the threshold. Keep this positive, do not use the word "outside" and have either treats or a toy for motivation.

If he is really reluctant still, continue marking slow progress of one foot on the threshold, two paws, three paws, etc until he is outside. Do not ask, verbally, for this behavior unless using encouraging sounds and being happy (no commands).

You can mix it up with some OB in between, keep these sessions short to prevent stress.

Retrain this with a different word after he has gone totally through the door at least 5 times in a row. Wait until he is throug the door to say "_______ Good ______ !" and reward.

I agree with Mike that this is not a dominance issue, this is a fear issue. Either something bad happened in the backyard or you asking for outside became negative likely by forcing them outside. Could very well be a combination of the two, but fear of you is over riding the reluctance to go outside.

Thanks guys. The thing is he'll only do this when he doesn't feel like going outside. If I go outside, then he follows happily. When I first let the dogs outside in the morning he'll go out just fine. It's usually later in the day. He also will sit at the door and try to get back inside by whining a lot. He just wants to be inside if I'm going to be.

Of course you are all correct though. When he would first start expressing the desire to stay inside, and he ignored the outside, I used three quick tugs on his collar to correct him and try to move him. This is probably where I went wrong. I believe it has something to do with him wanting to be inside close to me all the time also. I know that nothing bad has happened outside. It seems to me that he really just wants to stay inside, and then since I've corrected him for not listening he now exhibits the fear.I've let him stay inside sometimes, and he immediately relaxes and hangs out with me.

I'm sure it's my fault, and so I am the solution. As I've been learning how to correct appropriately and at the right time the mistakes I've made I feel bad about. I haven't been abusive, just not fair. Otis was my first dog, and he was rescued at 6 months old. I didn't know anything about dog training until he was about 3, so I've made my fair share of mistakes.

Thank you all for your help. More than anything I want to treat my dogs in the very best way. They are loving and loyal to me and they deserve the best. I appreciate the help in making that possible.

I've come to realize that he isn't the most strong nerved dog also. As you mentioned Mike, he does get frightened fairly easily. He's the only one of my dogs afraid of fireworks.

This problem has only arisen in the past 6 months or less.

It doesn't sound like this is quite your problem, but I had a similar situation with my gsd Jake. I have a small garden in my backyard and realized at some point that I had to spray to get rid of some bugs eating my tomatoes. The smell of whatever was in the spray (this was even an 'all natural' soap based product because i didn't want to risk the dogs chewing on a leaf or something weird) scared the heck out of Jake. So much so that I thought there must have been something hiding in the plants the way he barked and ran.

After much trial and error, I finally spent an entire weekend bribing him with hot dogs. Unlike Otis, Jake wouldn't even want to follow me out the door. I cut the hot dog into tiny pieces, and would toss him one from the doorway. When we got to the doorway (it took several times of him running to his crate and me calling him back again) I repeated the same process down the steps. Finally again to outside.

Since he was still tentative (and the hotdogs weren't working as well as they did before), I went outside and fed my other dog Dixon pieces of hotdog with Jake watching from the threshold. Then I walked up and closed the door with Jake inside; I worked with Dixon on OB (I went through a lot of hotdogs, lol) loudly until Jake couldn't take it and started barking at the door. I finally went and let him out, and he couldn't wait to get outside and join the fun . He's still tentative... even after a few weeks, but we're working on it.

I still can't believe plant spray scared him so much! Crazy nervy dog, but I love him anyway