Severe Issues with Strangers

[jkasmarick]

I adopted a labradoodle about 5 months ago. She is the light of my life and the sweetest dog in the world towards me. However, I am having issues with her and people that come over to the house, or people we encounter on our daily walks. She will lunge and bark at those anyone in her viscinity for 15+ minutes. She gets semi aggressive as well towards them. I'm going through a divorce right now, and will be moving to an apartment soon where I can NOT have this. She was adopted from Animal Control, and both my trainer and vet do think she had suffered some kind of abuse. She was found wandering the streets in a pretty unsafe area. Can anyone PLEASE help me with this???

[jkasmarick]

I forgot to mention, she does attend daycare once a week, and does extremely well with the staff there and other dogs.

[deepnite10]

generally its a socialization problem..more exposure to people will over time get a dog to calm down around people..

to be more specific..the core of the problem is what you ve mention d..poor experiences with people, or limited exposure when they were younger..

to compensate for insecurity they may feel the need to over do there role in protecting their new home..as well as their new owners..

i can see that more positive experiences, over time will get a dog to feel
less threatened and more secure with people..

as well as Toby is around people..when there are new faces around..i ll make a point in taking him over to people to introduce them..a handshake
and the tail begins to wag..

its only natural that dogs would be cautious around new surrounding s and people..a gradual exposure to different situations and people can go a long way in making a dog feel more secure..

i really hope you have the time to spend in training..its the key to any well behaved dog..

[Nikkiey]

We had a similar problem with our dog, however ours is just extrememly hyper and wants to play with EVERYTHING so he will jump and lunge out of pure excitement. The way we started to deal with this was by breaking out "the good treats" for walks. Everytime we saw someone approaching we would get Juneau to sit and we would feed him one treat after another (I'm talking real steak and chicken pieces to hold his interest) and then would stop once the person/dog has passed. It took almost 2 weeks of doing this to get to where we are now (just pulling slightly on the leash towards another dog but leaves bikers and runners alone). We know that this will eventually lead to Juneau sitting everytime someone passes us, but we're hoping once we accomplish this we will do a little bit more with the training to get him able to walk past them. For now, that would be asking way too much of him.

Now I understand that your dog's actions may stem from the fact that they have a fear of people so there is more than the just the issue of jumping and lunging, but perhaps this might help. I do sympathize with you though, I know how frustrating a walk can be!

[lindamarie]

TRAINING!
Have you taken your doodle to an obedience class? If so, contact the trainer.

[lindamarie]

OOOOOOPS!
You did say trainer........I would try another one.