We recently rescued a St. Bernard from a shelter about 3 months ago. She was grossly malnurished and underweight, flea infested, losing her hair, wandering around outside for quit awhile and previously abused. When we went to evaluate her (we had to actually contact the St. rescue due to her state the pound was not showing her but instead waiting out the 9 days to put her down) we also brought our then 12 month old saint with us to see how she reacted to other dogs. She was of course pretty listless but had no problem with us touching her (she did flinch if you brought your hand down to pet her too fast but never snapped) and immediately took to following our dog around. We made arrangements to pick her up immediatelyl after the 9 day period (as they told us she wouldn't be around by the end of day 10). She was slightly food agressive for the first week but gained weight quickly and realized there's always enough. Today there's not the slightest sign of food agression, knows all basic commands,is housetrained and knows how to 'share'. She plays well with our other saint and is the passive one. She's very affectionate both with us and others once she sees they're friendly.
Our problem lies with her reaction towards children and other dogs and when we try walking her in general. She gets very excited when we say 'walk' - so she likes going and is a little uptight but relaxes once she gets used to being out (when we take her out it's always on the same route). However if she sees a dog or children she freaks. Also she barks when someone walks too close. It looks like she's just trying to get attention. I orginally thought she may be scared due to being abused but we've had brave dog people approach and she just leans on them and wants to be petted. Also, she's been in close proximity with other dogs at the vet no problem. I am however nervous of introducing a child to her to see how she reacts (a baby was brought into the house and she was actually better than our other dog, staying about 1ft from the baby and very gentle).
I don't know how to begin socializing her to help her realize a now 120lb barking saint doesn't result in people petting you. I don't know if it's too early for her or if she'll never be ready. (Sidenote: she also gets so anxious/excited it's sometimes hard to get her attention). From her personality it seems she loves people but doesn't know how to go about getting attention without scaring them or getting anxiety. She's never bit but we've never had her in a situation where she may be able to. If people come over or we're out with her and she seems too overwhelmed we take her out of the situation.
Any advice would be helpful.

Hi Amy,
I grew up with a Saint; they can be very sweet.

How old is she? What do you mean by "she freaks" when she sees other dogs or children?

One way to tell if she is aggressive to kids without putting a real child in danger would be to see how she reacts to a life sized doll. If she is aggressive toward it, it's pretty likely she'll be aggressive to real kids too. I would NOT recommend that you TRY to elicit an aggressive response by making the doll do wierd things or continuing to have the doll present in the room if the dog is visibly uncomfortable. I would certainly not say that if she's OK with the doll, it automatically means she's OK with real kids....there could be more going on than you can replicate with a doll.

At this point, until more is known, removing her from situations she can't handle would be the correct response. Actually it would be better to not put her into situations she can't handle. Start with low level situations and work up to the harder stuff slowly.

Also Amy, do you use prong collars and do you understand why we use them? I am also involved in rescuing abused animals but i always use a prong even in the abuse cases. They learn faster because it speaks to them better than we can. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

She's about 4 years old and craves attention. We were considering a head collar (I believe they produce the same results as the prong though please correct me if someone feels strongly otherwise).

They are completely different.

Have you asked the St. rescue that you originally worked with about her behavior? Perhaps they have some St. specific resources that might be of assistance to you.