I sent you a pm Ariel.

We got a tad off topic here.


Sorry, because I did a lot of the going-off-track.


I hope we can return to:


QUOTE: Do you know anything about desensitizing a dog? .... You should focus on her behavior in public & building her confidence in public situations...before even thinking about any sport training. END QUOTE

which addresses this from the O.P.:

"My girl has always been wary of strangers. and sometimes she barks and raises her hackles when a stranger is approaching us.. especcially at night. And she pins her ears back when being pet by strangers. I generally give the strangers a piece of food to feed her. She rarly shows her teeth to people though- today was a one-time thing.

My question is: how do i go about fixing this? or is this even a big problem?

When do i correct her?"

It helps to be an old person when someone starts to boss you around about your dog. I find it much easier to speak to folks who think they know everything now that I am in my 60s.

It sounds to me like you have a really nice mal and you will end up being more successful than the judge whom you met. the rubbing all over the head business is a better technique for colts than it is for dogs in a strange environment.

I may be repeating others thoughts but here's my $0.02

Why do you need to correct her for voicing her emotions and opinions if she hasn't got an alternative? It's my personal feeling that making a dog keep his 'thoughts' to himself is like building a bomb. You might know what you're doing and be able to handle it safely and it'll never go off. Or something terrible can happen. I personally know someone who owned a pit bull who had some pretty severe human aggression (completely against the breeds personality). They taught the dog to stuff down his emotions until he finally had enough and went off like a rocket and bit someone badly enough to send them to the hospital.

If I were in this position I'd prefer to give her something positive to do instead of her negative reactions. Teaching her that instead of eyeballing someone and letting out a growl she can signal she's uncomfortable by leaning against your leg and engaging your attention. Teaching her a positive avoidance behavior (walking away, turning away from someone, coming immediately to your side and staring at you) that signals she's ready to leave the situation and then rewarding her for that behavior and building her stamina for stressful situations.

Radar would have bitten people (and he did) if they got to close to him. It was a lot of work but I managed to get him to the point where he'd let me know he was unhappy with something and then he'd trust me to decide what to do about it. I did it all with a tug toy. Every time I put him in a situation I knew he would feel uncomfortable about we started on the edge of his threshold and worked in while we played tug and had a great time, just the two of us. His handler focus is top notch because of it. It's resulted in him being more stable and not as sharp as he started out. His breeder thinks he's a social butterfly, but he didn't see the snotty little monster I got to raise! There were some corrections involved in his behavior adjustment but that came after I'd shown him what I'd rather he did. Once I knew he knew... I'd get on his case about eyeballing people, lip quivering, growling, even if his ears came up too hard.

I know you start to expect anti-social behavior out of your dog when it's the norm for them - not all dogs want to be social. As soon as anyone put my (people loving) boy in a position where he started acting like what you described I would have removed him. It's the only way they have of telling us how they feel. Appeal to authority can be hard to dismiss, though.

I don't think I'm allowed to call that person what I think of her on here. Darned family friendly forum. I don't care how long I work with dogs, I'm not sure I would ever feel ok about making a dog feel socially uncomfortable on purpose.

Hey, Kristin... maybe we could petitiion Ed for a section that is "Adults only", where we can sometimes say what we are really thinking...