My puppy is nervous in certain situations and confident in others. He can pass by 100 people downtown and not have any reaction at all, but don't let even one person try to pet him. He doesn't trust anyone except my wife and I, because he was very obviously abused before we got him at around three months old...hand shy, foot shy, etc.. Given the age we got him at that most certainly happened during his prime socialization period. I doubt he'll ever be a friendly dog.

And the hidden fear aspect sounds very plausible. My pup seems to already intimidate people because of how intense he is
( http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g181/91SiZ6/pets/duke110.jpg ).
One of my wife's friends tries not to be scared of him but she is and it makes him nervous. Her husband will just stand a little ways off, arms crossed, relaxed, and not looking directly at Duke. Duke will happily walk up to him to be pet, ears back, tail club wagging, and silly puppy grin. As a result, she just isn't allowed to pet him anymore. Granted, my wife decided that it'd be a great idea to take a brand new puppy, literally only hours in our house and that showed up on our doorstep, over to this friend's house and then to PetCo. He bit both the friend and a cashier for reaching to pet him (hand shy). So I don't exactly blame the friend. On a somewhat related note, he absolutely loves kids. My wife takes him to the park and kids come out of the woodwork to pet the dog that looks like Bolt. He soaks it up like a dry sponge in a puddle and is very gentle with them.

Scott, I use to make this assumption also, that when a dog was shy, that he had been abused. I have since learned that this is probably more of a genetic issue. I would not allow children to
interact with him. He has already bitten people out of fear.
Kids are unpredictable, please protect your dog. By working with him, like you are, you are actually building confidence.
Keep up the good work, let him see his world, just don't let people mess with him........byw, how old is he now?
Happy Training,
Roni

Thanks for the post and compliment, Roni. First, I apologize for the length of the post.

He's about 27 weeks old and is going to be a smaller dog, maybe 65-70lbs.. I do what I can to build his confidence by letting him win tug, having him work for things, doing marker training in various locations, and getting him used to the things that bother him. We actually haven't taken him to a park with kids for a while and don't let anyone pet him. We just wanted him to learn that all kids aren't like our obnoxious neighbor, who jumped on the chain link fence and shook it while going "hey dog, hey dog, hey dog, can I pet your dog?" and drove him bonkers. A few kind but stern words after that incident and she doesn't pay any attention to him anymore. At any rate, with how he looks now parents tend to grab their chillins and run away from the devil, so socialization there doesn't really have much of a choice but to end. I don't blame them, but they could be a little more rational about it at times...and I don't blame them for that either, with the number of out of control dogs and irresponsible owners. With anyone else, he stays by my side and I say "sorry, you can't pet him". I've long held the belief that my dogs are my dogs, if you want to pet a dog go get your own. Which, of course, makes most of my friends think I'm nuts.

More than just the shyness, I feel he was abused by the reactions. I'm tall and use my feet to gently nudge my cats and dogs, the first time I did it to Duke he screamed like he was being beaten and completely shut down. We were taking a walk one day, early on, and I decided to see what his response would be to clapping. He was fine with the noise, but seeing my right hand coming down to meet the left made him almost hit the ground. Shortly after we got our 30' lead I kicked some of it out of my way and he almost fell down leaping sideways. I admittedly don't have a great deal of experience with dogs but these reactions seem learned more than genetic.

The short story of how he came to us, which I think is important here, is that he showed up on our doorstep at around 12 weeks (judging by tooth loss) barking his head off like he lived here. He instantly took to both my wife and I, laying down on my feet within minutes and following me to/from the mailbox. A few days later our neighbor said "hey, nice dog, where'd you get him?" to my wife as she and Duke were going for a walk. Turns out he'd been given the pup the day before we got him, from "some Mexican guy at WalMart"...our neighbor is Mexican himself. He also said that it just sat under his house screaming all night and dug its way out under the fence...coincidentally, this is the neighbor who's GSD tried to attack him in our front yard while we played frisbee. Now, the interesting part is that Duke's always shown a strong dislike to towards Mexican men...I'd go so far as to call it a prejudice. It seems like the kind of reaction that develops from repeated bad encounters with a specific group, in humans. But, when he was new with us he'd pull and pine towards Mexican woman and kids. Otherwise, he hasn't shown any bias or preference towards any group and now seems to view most people with a general air of distrust.

Then there's the flip side. He's lit up four times now at perceived threats, in the past month or so. Each time has been with a posture of confidence and possibly dominance...he's also proving to be territorial, always kicking his back feet in the front yard. He stands with his feet firmly planted, leaning slightly forward, head high, tail up and wagging, ears forward, and deep barks and growls. A brief run down of the encounters. The first was when he saw my wife half hidden by a tree working with some new plants. The second was my wife again, while she was on a set of swings about 100 yards away from us. Both times he went into active submission when he realized it was her...what I call "puppy goo". The third time was at about 2am in the front yard when three guys came riding around the corner with bags of recyclables, making a fair amount of noise. He was a bit unsure about that one when the third guy appeared, but bounced back almost immediately. The fourth was when my mom came over for the second time since we got him. He really didn't like the unfamiliar presence in his territory. Some training, on all of our parts, worked that one out. In that instance, her fear fed his fear at first, which then gave my wife anxiety. Two hours later the three of them went for a walk and he seemed to have completely accepted her. I wouldn't let her just walk into my house with him uncrated at this point, though.

So, there's a quick run down of Duke's puzzle pieces. If nothing else, he's already making an outstanding watchdog and a sweetheart of a pet. I yield to the voice of experience.

.... What really made the difference was me realizing that as Luc's pack leader, he looked to me to control his world, and that when I wasn't there to control things, he didn't know what to do, got nervous, and decided to put on show. ....

I'm going to suggest some videos, for the little experience I have with dogs like yours:
http://leerburg.com/308.htm
http://leerburg.com/219.htm
http://leerburg.com/302.htm

Your dog does sound fearful to me. I once had a small pom/jrt mix and he would have been a good dog for one person. He didn't like men, small kids, and would growl and nip at people he didn't like/trust. I attributed it to being treated badly before he came home with me, he was about 3months old, but I think it was the lack of structure he was given--I blame myself for bringing home a dog then moving to an apt. that didn't allow dogs. Needless to say, I had to find him a new home, because my parents weren't willing to keep him for me, due to my mom's in home adult foster care and I couldn't have him at the apartment I was living in.

A lot of what you describe as him reacting to threats with confidence/dominant posturing reminds me a LOT of Luc when I first got him. With Luc, it was actually nervousness/fear.

 Quote: jennifer mullen

.... What really made the difference was me realizing that as Luc's pack leader, he looked to me to control his world, and that when I wasn't there to control things, he didn't know what to do, got nervous, and decided to put on show. ....

Not realizing this is the most common problem by far that I encounter with other people's "problem" companion dogs.

The position of pack leader is open, to the dog's perception, and that vacancy must be filled, whether the dog is frightened, anxious, nervous, or whatever. The dog perceives an urgent need for that position to be filled. Whether he is a leader by nature or not, he is forced into the role by a pack leader who doesn't act like a pack leader.

Regardless of the dog's natural inclination (and maybe a dog is the one in a hundred wired to be in charge), the human has to be the leader, the way we live with our dogs. But I can say that IME, the vast majority of companion dogs who perceive that the vacuum in the pack leader spot is finally filled with a human who is in charge, who protects the pack members, and who makes all decisions, is a hugely relieved dog. A job that the dog probably did not want and that filled him with anxiety is finally taken off his shoulders.

Absolutely. I was sure he had aggression issues, dominance problems - and he doesn't at all. It was all me. I thought b/c I had read Cesar Millan before I adopted him and I walked out the door first, I was being a pack leader. But I wasn't, not really.

It was so foreign to me that he would be calmed by me handling things, I thought he needed to learn to handle things to 'face his fears'. But now I think that's a human way of handling an issue, not a dog one. His huge fear of dogs (in the shelter, they weren't walked but put out in runs in groups, and he came to me with lots of bite scars on his muzzle) - he would try to run away, become terrified, just break down - I can still remember the first time we were charged by an aggressive dog, I stood in between Luc and the dog, said 'NO!' and then kicked it away. And Luc just stood there the whole time completely calm. When we walked away, it was like any other day, any other walk. Now if we see another dog coming, he just moves so that I'm in between (though, sometimes, on hiking trails only, he'll say hello to a calm dog).

I think quite often confidence signals in dogs are bluffs; ways to say, 'Hey, I'm big and in charge and you don't want to come over here to mess with me!!!' - it's a bluff to cover nervousness/fear, b/c really, they are scared that 'you' might come over to mess with them. It sounds to me like that's Duke's reaction.

..... Hmm. I'm a bit confused. At what point does natural protectiveness come into play? I've always viewed dogs like rotties and GSDs as naturally protective dogs who just show this kind of reaction.

The reaction I described about the three guys on bikes. If that was fearful reaction, what is a protective reaction?