Help, my CBR is shy

[lstaples22]

Hello, I have a CBR who is pretty shy and skittish. This is not typically this breeds attitude, they are generally bold and brave. Does anyone have advice of how I can help her get out of being shy and scared of everything...she is suppose to be a hunting dog, this is why we bought her. We take her many different place and give tons of positive reinforcement but this still doesnt seem good enough. Help!

[mountaindogs]

I have met several on the shy side. My advice is just keep on keeping on with taking her everywhere. Be careful not to reward her for being shy, ignore the shy and act as normal as possible trying to get her focus back on you with a simple fun trick or game and reward her for that. You want to be her "leader" and thus you want to be brave and show her that all is well with you and you are not noticing anything worrisome. Reward her for acting normal, but ignore the shy if possible.
The hard parts are if she is barking or backing away. You can't ignore that, but try your very best to get her out of it into some other behavior that you can reward. I find for shy dogs, Sit and Down are hard for these fearful situations. They are afraid already and do not want to be more vulnerable. So try a spin, touch, tug game (if your training programs allows) or even a watch me type command to get the focus back onto you.

Also realize all dogs go through phases with fear and boldness. As she grows she will go through a few swings of behavior.

[lstaples22]

She is actually pretty good at sitting when in stressful situations. I will not be excited/praise her when she is shy, im pretty good at ignoring bad behavior but I tend to get excited to try and get her excited and maybe she might see that as me praising her. Thanks for you response.

[Susie]

Could you share a little history? Did you get her as a pup? How old is she? What type of training have you done with her? How far a long are you on her with obedience?

[lstaples22]

Unfortunetly I got her at 3 months old from a breeder so they did not interact much with humans and the outside world, she lived on 3 acres of land. She is great with people and other dogs just extremely submissive and shy to new places, cars, driving in cars, etc. Right now she is 5 months old. She can sit, lay down, just about roll over, working on staying and backing up which is good when im the focus, not her toy. Its hard to get her to play in the yard, she loves to run to the front door and sit and ignore us. Sometimes we can get a few minutes of play time, thats it. I would just love for her to be more brave and outgoing, we bought her first as a companion dog but secondly to hunt birds and being this timid, hunting hasnt gone so well. I dont know if your dog does that but when we showed her the bird she coward down to it but oddly another time (before we took her hunting) we brought a bird home and she loved it. Please help with whatever you can. Do you have a chessie? Your picture looks like one.

[Susie]

I dont know if your dog does that but when we showed her the bird she coward down to it but oddly another time (before we took her hunting) we brought a bird home and she loved it. Please help with whatever you can. Do you have a chessie? Your picture looks like one.

My dogs don't cower down to birds because we don't take an unprepared 5 month old pup hunting <VBG> PM me with your name and phone # and I will give you a call this weekend. I've owned CBRs over 20 years and have done breed rescue for almost 15 years...with a little patients and knowledge I bet you can get this little girl on the right track

[Steve007]

Formal obedience work has given confidence to many an insecure dog and over time, will ensure that you CAN take her anywhere. Initially, at that age, it will be just be puppy socialization classes. Call an obedience club --one that eventually offers real training and not just taming pet dogs-- --amd sign up.