Hello,

Our girl is almost 10 months old and is becoming a pain. Main problem is that we thought things were going OK, but at the end we I think failed miserably in protecting her from those stresful situations. I am glad I found this website and forum as things are looking a lot brighter already.

Fanta is apparently afraid of strangers in certain environments and situations. she is fine on walks, even walking through crowds she does not show any signs of nervousness (at least to my untrained eye). as soon as someone makes eye contact with her and starts talking to her she goes off. not lunging but just barking trying to scare them off. good news is that she settles down quickly and then I can continue my conversation with that person. when she is off leash chasing the ball around she doesnt pay any attention to people or animals and she even allowed to be touched at the dog park (I know, not the best environment for a pup to say the least), which wouldnt happen otherwise.
Bigger issue arises when she is on "her turf". when "strangers" come to our house she barks at them. runs up to them but doesnt try to bite or nip. She is crazy about her rubber chuck-it ball so we try to redirect her to that. and even let the person being barked at throw her the ball and things are OK. until they change position that is (getting up for example). there are few of our friends that she is used to and doesnt mind, but the "strangers" rub her the wrong way.

so my question is this: what should we do desensitize her to people inside? I have the ball and the treats on the floor to distract as two strategies, but what else? corrections?
I already read some great articles by Mr. Frawley but if someone could help me apply that knowledge in real life.

I am a newbie as you can tell so any and all input will be greatly appreciated. I am sure there are some details that I am leaving out so feel free to ask.

Thank you all in advance.

Mike

Sounds like a pack structure issue, actually.

If it was fear based, she'd have issues other than barking at people making eye contact. She wouldn't want to have anything to do with walking through a crowd.

She doesn't like the challenge of eye contact, and she's responding to it.
That's the pack leader's job.

So, guess who she thinks the pack leader is?

was that a rhetorical question, Aaron?

once I read Ed's article on pack structure I knew we screwed up. shame on me not researching this site for more info earlier.

so she thinks she is the pack leader and she is taking matters into her paws "protecting" us from a stranger. is that how I should understand it?
did I mention I am totally green?

where do we go from there? Ground Work?

She perceives that there is no pack leader and that she must do that job herself.

Have you seen any threads here on desensitizing?

I have seen some threads on the topic.

so how do I establish myself as pack leader? just follow Ed's Ground Work article? any other pointers?

 Quote: mike szuminski

as soon as someone makes eye contact with her and starts talking to her she goes off. not lunging but just barking trying to scare them off. good news is that she settles down quickly and then I can continue my conversation with that person. when she is off leash chasing the ball around she doesnt pay any attention to people or animals and she even allowed to be touched at the dog park (I know, not the best environment for a pup to say the least), which wouldnt happen otherwise. .... Bigger issue arises when she is on "her turf". when "strangers" come to our house she barks at them. runs up to them but doesnt try to bite or nip. She is crazy about her rubber chuck-it ball so we try to redirect her to that. and even let the person being barked at throw her the ball and things are OK. until they change position that is (getting up for example). there are few of our friends that she is used to and doesnt mind, but the "strangers" rub her the wrong way.... so my question is this: what should we do desensitize her to people inside? I have the ball and the treats on the floor to distract as two strategies, but what else? corrections?

It's your job to protect her from the situations that are making her anxious. It's your job to tell strangers "no eye contact, no touch." It's good to be between her and the stranger, IMO.

I would stay away from off-leash dog parks, period. You have no reason to trust the other folks there to control their dogs or even to know what that means. One attack can change your girl's entire attitude about dogs, about your ability to protect her, about everything.

Indoors, tell us what kind of situation she is reacting to. Do relatives/neighbors/etc. come in and loom over her or touch her or get in her face?

person will come to the door and she is there barking. if it is someone she knows person will come in and as soon as she realizes who they are she is cool. no problems.
if it is someone she doesnt know well she will keep yapping. we then take her to her crate. unfortunately most of our friends are afraid of dogs (or have small children who are afraid) so they are not capable of just ignoring her. I cant really blame them because those teeth look pretty scary.
while in her crate she will still bark but then settles down. so we try to let her out and she will walk up to the person and sometimes she will bark and then go lay down but then when they get up she is back at it again.
they usually dont stand over her but last weekend my buddy visited and I told him to not pay her any mind but he would always turn to her and raise his hands and talk to her so she never settled down. funny thing was that when we went for a walk I let him take her leash and she was perfectly fine.

"unfortunately most of our friends are afraid of dogs (or have small children who are afraid) so they are not capable of just ignoring her."

I'd have her crated before the stranger arrived.

What a vibe (ah yes, can you tell I was a teenager in the 60s? lol) for the dog. Nervous people staring at her, no pack leader between herself and them ....

The buddy who "would always turn to her and raise his hands and talk to her so she never settled down" would definitely have caused me to be between the dog and the buddy if I had made the mistake of inviting him in with the puppy uncrated.

I would establish myself as pack leader before thinking about door behavior. Big part of "pack leader" for me is not putting the dog into situations that make her anxious, doing upbeat marker work with her, NILIF ....

What kind of basic ob training are you doing?


(JMO, and there is more, but others will advise too. )

Yup, start with the Groundwork article, and we'll work from there.

Report back with questions.