Yes, and it takes time to resolve. After 100 people (not just 5 or 10) give her treats she will start to relax. Do NOT correct growling, ever. I can't stress this enough. Also, as you found out correcting fear is the worst strategy and you might have made it worse.

Have people feed her treats but otherwise completely ignore her, absolutely no eye contact. Let her sit there and growl if she wants (as long as you are sure she won't bite or attack), give her space to back off if she needs to, and she will soon realize they are not a threat. You need to give her much more time and not be in such a hurry or you will not make any progress.

 Quote: angela burrell

Yes, and it takes time to resolve. After 100 people (not just 5 or 10) give her treats she will start to relax. Do NOT correct growling, ever. I can't stress this enough. Also, as you found out correcting fear is the worst strategy and you might have made it worse.

Have people feed her treats if you want (not usually my own preferred route) but otherwise completely ignore her, absolutely no eye contact. Let her sit there and growl if she wants (as long as you are sure she won't bite or attack), give her space to back off if she needs to, and she will soon realize they are not a threat. You need to give her much more time and not be in such a hurry or you will not make any progress.

I agree, except that even the treats have to be very casual, no hovering or bending over or staring at the dog. Ignore the dog. People coming to your house have to know this inside out before they ever come in, IMO. Meet them on the doorstep to say "Ignore the dog, including just looking."

You have not had the dog long enough (if I read right) for her to fully trust/believe that she has a protector between her and the rest of the world, so I'd go very very slowly with other folks and work harder on my bond with her.



I hope that you're doing marker training; that's a huge part of my own method for desensitizing a fearful dog outside the house.

How is she on walks, etc.?

PS
Everyone who said no corrections for fear: DITTO.

I have a dutch shepherd that has/had some fear aggression issues that sound very simular to your situation. We also had good obediance commands but she just wasn't comfortable around strangers and had a tendency to turn to agrression. Here are my comments of what worked and didn't work for us. I am not a trainer, so this information is based only on 1 dog. Please take this into consideration.

1. Corrections did not work. It indeed made the problem worse. This is the one thing I trully regret. At the same time, I'd immagine your PB has some dominant tendencies as my DS does as well. If corrections are necessary to reinforce obediance commands, use them as appropriate. But NEVER use corrections for fear issues.

2. Someone suggested turn eveyone into a hot dog dispenser. This did not work for me at the age of 22 months. I've seen this work for puppies, but at almost 2 yrs old, my DS would take the hot dog, then snap at the hand that gave it to her. What did work is turning myself into a hot dog dispenser whenever stranges were near. Not only did she recognize strangers as being "ok", but it also helped her focus on me in fearful situations. This helped her issue as well as helped me manage the situation.

3. Your dog needs to trust that you will protect it. Always try to stay between the dog and the threat. This will help develop that trust.

4. Many people here will tell you, to keep everyone away from your dog. Only you should be allowed to pet it. Although I understand this concept, I would prefer that my dog is ok with anybody petting it. With a fearful dog, this is not the case. I only let people I trust that are aware of and understand my dog's issue touch my dog. These few select individuals know the proper way to approach a dog. Anyone that I do not believe will approach the dog properly is kept away from the dog. People that are allowed, only touch the dog for a short amount of time and in a very neutral manner than walk away. Any encounter needs to be a possitive experience. If the dog feels the need to bark,growl, snap, or bite, you just tool one step backwards in your training. Always set the dog up for sucess and a positive encounter. No encounter is better than a negative encounter.

5. Accept the fact that a dog with bad nerves, will always have bad nerves. You can manage and improve the situation but I'm not sure you totally change the behavior.

Currently my dog is 3.5 years old. I started working on her fear issues when she was about 18 months old. I now condider her to have fear anxiety instead of fear aggression. As soon as I see the anxiety start, my primary goal is to control the situation she is in to build trust and prevent the turn to aggression. The more she learns to trust me to keep her safe, the more situations she is capable of handling.

Just my two cents from having a simular problem.

thank you for your tips. I dont understand why she is being like this tho. For the past 2 months I had her, she was the perfect dog. Litterally, she loved everyone, I even trained her so she was very obedient. As i said, I am a trainer so she is very good on walks. If she has bad nerves she's been hiding it pretty well. I tried corrections about 5 times in one day that was it. I could clearly see this was not going in the direction I wanted it to and that this growling was not dominant aggressive but fear aggressive. What could've caused, what is causing this? what might I be doing wrong with my dog.

I got a visit from a canine behaviorist today. She was quite impressed with my dog's obedience. She said that the root of the problem was that we never answer the door, we just tell people to come in. Basicly, my dog saw a situation where the people who used to be the bosses were not taking charge and thought she had to be the one to take matters into her own hands. The reason why she growled and barked is because she is a very submissive dog and was very uncomfortable about having to be the dominant in a situation where she had to deal with strangers who might represent a danger. Behaviorist taught us how to take back our territory when our dog reacts badly, like cesar millan does. I am so glad I called a behaviorist. I hope this problem will be solved soon. Looking forward to doing the exercises she showed me.

I am also going to look for a school to learn dog behavior and dog psychology asap.

Kevin, I commend you on acting so quickly to figure out what was causing her fearful aggression, and to realize so quickly that what you were doing was not effective...

What sorts of exercises did the behaviorist recommend?

Thank you so much Lynne. As a dog trainer, it wasnt easy to swallow my pride and go to dog behaviorist, But I have to admit, when it comes to dog psychology and behavior, I am limited in knowledge. First we identified the problem. As soon as she came in, my dog reacted normally with a wagging tail and submissive curious behavior like a very good dog. The behaviorist evaluated her temperament with a series of test including the "alpha roll" we see cesar millan do so often. My dog submitted very quickly with no aggression.

Then we went to the living room. As soon as my dog got on the couch, she started growling at the behaviorist. Thats when we found the root of the problem. The position of being up high there wasnt a privilege to her. It became sort of a crowd control responsibility. Often people dont knock when they come in my house, and the behaviorist told us that our dog sees that as a situation where the alpha has to greet and invite others in the home but wasnt on his job and dogs dont reason, they just react. She saw a situation where there was no alpha and decided to become one. Being that my dog is very submissive, the situation made her uncomfortable and scared. I had forgotten how important position is with dogs. Sometimes I would even sit on the floor while my dog was on the couch... not because I wanted to leave her on the couch but because sometimes i feel more confortable there.

The basic exercises she gave us is the same as cesar millan. Basically when someone comes in, they must knock first. When the dog barks we must take her off the couch and take back our territory by making her back away until her body language shows submission and no more interest to go near the door. Then when the dog has backed away, we go answer the door, greet the newcomer and then call the dog back to greet AFTER we did. We've done it a couple times yesterday and it works wonderfully. when the dog comes back she walks with ears back head low and a wagging tail like she should. I recommend behaviorist to ALL, it only cost me 50$ for one session and I have a solution to cure my problem.

I am definitly going to find a school to learn to become a dog psychologist and behaviorist asap.

In all my years training dogs, I have never come up against ( or heard about ) a situation where a dog behaviorist fixed something that an experienced dog trainer could not.

However I have experienced or witnessed several situations in the opposite , where a good dog trainer repaired a situation when a dog behaviorist failed to do so.
< shrug >

Did the behaviorist look for and demand a submissive pee too?

Oh well, as long as you and your dog are happy now.

Hey, does anyone know how many big words I have to remember to become a certified 'dog behaviorist'?

Get the dog off the couch! 50bucks please. Can you remember all that Randy?