Gun Dog Forum

I have 7 months GSP that is scared of other people .He growls and gets right next to me when we are around other people. I finally decide to keep him even after several other issues, but this one issue I can not ignore. Any suggestions before I trade him back ? I like having the guy around despite him not wanting to hunt .

get him around familiar people, your friends, family, etc. Prep the people with lots of treats before you let your dog in the room our outside with them. Every time the dog wanders over to someone he gets a treat.

It sounds spoiled, but with consistency and a lot of positive attention your dog will begin to think everyone is a treat machine.

how is he around other dogs? Usually these socialization problems go hand in hand because the dog spends too much time solo.

What Benny said I used to take Dutchess down to local store front and have different folks offer her treats. Helped a lot.

He's great with other dogs. I think he was in a kennel for most of his life before I got him .

you need patiency, you have to be patient, patient, patient! Greeting madonna

collinedward wrote:He's great with other dogs. I think he was in a kennel for most of his life before I got him .

You're lucky this is at 7 months; it is still a very fixable problem. Think of it as another part of training, and just make sure you are consistent over time. It was tough with us because we live out of town a ways and its usually just my girlfriend and I at home, but we took her all over around Christmas and she got tons of pets and treats. Big improvement.

EDIT: Not to add confusion, but keep an eye out for signs of guarding. If your dog thinks he's guarding you and is acting territorial, this is somewhat different. In this case you may have to do a little more, like giving him a little shake on the scruff, rolling him on his back and letting the stranger (or your friends) come pet him. Not to the point of embarrassment, just enough to let him know that it's not okay.
However, it does sound like fear so far, just keep at the ladder concepts.

WiskeyJaR wrote:What Benny said I used to take Dutchess down to local store front and have different folks offer her treats. Helped a lot.

What WiskeyJaR said. My Abby was awfully shy & wouldn't leave my legs when we encountered strangers - tail tucked, low to the ground & acted like she was being beaten. So we took her to Sportsmens Warehouse, PetZoo, Petco, anywhere they would allow a dog to go & encouraged people to pet her & give her treats that we had.... it did work. (If I thought for one second that she was a "fear biter", then we would have worked the problem at a different angle).

We also took her to Puppy Class at our local dog training center to get her more socialized around other dogs. This also helped!

Sorry I disagree with people giving treats if the dog ever growls at them...
had a guy with a springer he was trying the same thing the fact is dog was learning if it growled at people she got a treat and then he would pet her to calm her down all this did was only furthering all the undesired behaviors.

it was changed it real quick i told him to wear a baseball cap and when the dog even began to growl i had him quickly and quietly take his cap off pop the dog on the head in a manner to redirect the behavior and put the hat back on and act like nothing happened..this is not abuse it was never done in anger one pop redirect attention and carry on like nothing happened the growl is directly what caused getting popped on the head

took the guy about 2 weeks before she finally stopped growling at his clients since she goes to work with him and i am serious this dog was literally on the verge of biting someone. she is now a pleasure to be around and though she still is hesitant about people she shows no signs of any agression

she still on the shy side but if you sit down she will come check you out