Running and barking at strangers?

[KyleRay]

We have an 8 month old, spayed GSP and we're having the issue of her running barking at people but, only sometimes.

When we walk on a leash, she actually does really well. We can walk through a crowd of people, we regularly walk through the local university where there are people walking everywhere, she's really good and she does not bark.

But if off leash, she seems to get a "guard and scare things off" mentality that she doesn't have while on-leash.

For example:
We have a river beach nearby that I take her to run/train off leash for about an hour each day, it works well and is usually deserted. Today we get to the beach, nobody else appears to be there, so I let her off leash. Well apparently now that the water levels have dropped, there is a secondary access point because as we walk down the beach, there is truck right on the river, with people fishing just around a bend in the river.

When she sees the people, from about 100 yards out, she starts barking and runs at them.
When she gets there, she isn't growling or showing teeth but she is definitely barking RIGHT AT the people from a few feet away.
If someone's dog did that to me, I would feel threatened and angry.
I was mortified, pissed off and thankful that nothing more happened and that the fishermen were surprisingly understanding as I ran over and grabbed her.

BEFORE there is a bunch of "well don't let her off leash you idiot" commentary, yes, that's obvious at this point and she will remain on-leash to prevent this type of thing from happening from here on out.

But that's why I'm here.
I don't know how to address this as the only situation in which it happens is one I can't really recreate in order to teach her.
She has a solid recall in most situations, whether she's chasing squirrels or sniffing the occasional dead fish, but she flat-out ignores me in the situation above.
She has sort of done this a few times before while outdoors but there seemed to be more of an element of surprise associated with it (ie someone walking up to us from the treeline, not realizing we were there). Either way, this idea that if she is off leash that she needs to scare people away is unacceptable and unsafe.

I have a friend's e-collar, that certainly seems like a solution after today and while I'm fine with the idea of using it, I fear there is a larger issue at-hand than simple recall obedience in that I'd like her not to view people down river as a threat to be scared off.

Additionally: We've started letting her sleep on the foot of our bed lately but that's over now. Back to the crate.
I also plan enforce stricter control of the toys, letting her play with MY toys when I allow her to.

We took her on a 2 week cross-country road trip when she was about 51/2 months old and she did great around strangers as well as in the car, even if we left her alone to run in and grab a bite to eat or check something out but now if we leave her, she will bark at people as they walk by to their cars.
We no longer put her in this situation because we don't want her to be rewarded for this behavior (ie she barks and the people in the parking lot go away).

Has anyone dealt with this before?
What might I do about it?
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

// Thank you.

[mnaj_springer]

Is she generally a submissive dog? Sometimes submissive dogs bark because of a fear response which is meant to prevent an actual confrontation. My spaniel does this occasionally. My response is to ignore her barking and go talk to the people in a friendly way. She relaxes when the BOSS shows no fear. But check your own reaction. If you're mortified and pissed, she sees that as you feeling threatened by the strangers, which will reinforce her barking.

I WOULD NOT use the e-collar for this. She may think the strangers are the ones causing the unpleasant sensation, which may lead to an unwanted response (I.e. Actual aggression).

But these are just my opinions.

[KyleRay]

Thanks mnaj.

I would honestly rather not use an e-collar, keeping in mind your exact point that she might associate strangers with unpleasantness, which is the exact opposite of what we want.

I haven't even considered using it until this afternoon.

I think part of why she does well on a leash is because it's definitely the boss taking charge... She doesn't so much as even ruff lightly at people or things, the worst she'll typically do is to want to jump impolitely but even that's not regular.

She doesn't show overtly submissive behavior like lying on her back every time she gets pet by a human but by no means does she show any dominance issues either. She's smart and pretty dang obedient, if energetic and sometimes a little too "hey whatcha doin" clingy but, that's part of a GSP.

I would also say that my "being pissed" is more of an in the truck driving home after the incident thing... Not fuming but embarrassed and frustrated at what happened. In the moment I feel like I typically maintain a calm but assertive state but, who knows, maybe not as much as I'd like to think, given the results.

All that said, this activity (as well as her beginning to bark at people in parking lots) has definitely made me consider that it's fear barking like you'd mentioned.

Although, even if that is the case, I'm not sure how to set about trying to correct it.

Thanks again for your reply mnaj, hopefully I can sleep on it, check back here and start fresh tomorrow with new eyes into correcting this issue.

Cheers!

[Soarer31]

When you go to the beach again FIRST walk the dog on leash amongst the strangers for a good 10min or so then move aways some then release the dog

[cjhills]

I am dealing with exactly the same situation, with a dog whose owner allowed this behavior to continue. This will escalate if you do not take control to the point where the dog may become dangerous. I would like to see this dogs pedigree.
Watch very carefully for signs of dominance in the dog. Such as putting her foot on yours, rushing in or out when thru a opened door. leaning into you at heel, marking or scratching when she goes to the bathroom. She very well may not see you as the leader. Remember if you are the leader she does not need to protect you.
This can a result of treat training. The dog learns to manipulate you to get the treat and really is not obeying your command. I am looking at one that does this right now.
Not letting her sleep in your bed is a good step in the right direction. Also make her wait for her food and take a few pieces which you have spit on out of your hand. If she will not do this take her food away. Try later. If she still will not try the next day. She will not starve. I had a dog who went three days without food. Put your arms over her back and lift her front feet off the ground.
Do not try to calm her and tell her she will be okay. Make sure she knows this is unacceptable behavior.
The other thing is she disobeyed your recall command. This will not get better by itself.
Learn how to collar condition The dog and use the e-collar as a long check cord. Properly done ,This will not cause the dog any more issues than a leash or a check cord.
Sorry, if I got a bit carried away but I can not understate the need to stop this now it may very well save your dog's life. You need to take this very seriously...........................Cj

[Mumpy]

I am dealing with exactly the same situation, with a dog whose owner allowed this behavior to continue. This will escalate if you do not take control to the point where the dog may become dangerous. I would like to see this dogs pedigree.
Watch very carefully for signs of dominance in the dog. Such as putting her foot on yours, rushing in or out when thru a opened door. leaning into you at heel, marking or scratching when she goes to the bathroom. She very well may not see you as the leader. Remember if you are the leader she does not need to protect you.
This can a result of treat training. The dog learns to manipulate you to get the treat and really is not obeying your command. I am looking at one that does this right now.
Not letting her sleep in your bed is a good step in the right direction. Also make her wait for her food and take a few pieces which you have spit on out of your hand. If she will not do this take her food away. Try later. If she still will not try the next day. She will not starve. I had a dog who went three days without food. Put your arms over her back and lift her front feet off the ground.
Do not try to calm her and tell her she will be okay. Make sure she knows this is unacceptable behavior.
The other thing is she disobeyed your recall command. This will not get better by itself.
Learn how to collar condition The dog and use the e-collar as a long check cord. Properly done ,This will not cause the dog any more issues than a leash or a check cord.
Sorry, if I got a bit carried away but I can not understate the need to stop this now it may very well save your dog's life. You need to take this very seriously...........................Cj

I would just like to add to this about something I did. I taught my dog to recall on tone from the Garmin Delta Sport collar. He knows if he does not come on the tone that he will get a stim to follow there shortly allowing me to use the "Tone Recall" as an extension of a Leash.

[KyleRay]

SOARER31 - That is what my thought was this morning as well, yesterday I didn't realize there were people on the beach but from now on, I think we'll do a sort of perimeter check while on leash, letting her see people on the beach (if there are any) while under control.

CJHILLS - While it is currently more of my dog being a jerk rather than overt aggressiveness, it is already beyond any level of acceptable behavior and I wholeheartedly agree with you: if it continues, it will escalate into a larger issue.

In regards to dominance stuff, she just doesn't seem to show any of the signs which is why we began letting her sleep on the foot of our bed several nights/wk and giving her a few more freedoms like leaving a small container of her toys near her bed. We make her wait for her food (for 2-10 minutes depending on the day), she doesn't lean in on me when walking, she'll eat food after I spit on it with no hesitation, doesn't rush out the door (we make her sit and wait), no paws on top of us, no marking or scratching when going to the bathroom and no rushing out the door.

On the flip side of that, we have clicker/treat trained and while it works wonderfully in a lot of situations, I do fear it becoming a crutch. She walks noticeably better on a leash if I have treats vs. if I don't have treats but her recall/sit/stay/down command works the regardless.
I'd love to have her walk as well without treats as she does with them but, that might be a different discussion.
CJ, you said you are "dealing with exactly the same situation with a dog."
Are you working with someone else's dog to try to curb that behavior? Just curious.

This "barking thing" has happened at thedog park we visit and camping as well. If someone comes into the dog park for example, she's fine with that even if they don't have a dog, she gets excited to meet them and will let people pet her and is super friendly. BUT, if someone walks by 40 feet away she will bark at them to go away. It's almost as if she's okay with humans being around and near her but if they're just off in the distance, she doesn't like it...it's strange.

It feels like I'm throwing our dog under the bus and making her sound like a terror (human guilt). She's not. In fact she is so dang good outside of this issue that we've commented on how good she is at so many things for the last few months for her age...better than any dog my wife or I have had/grew up with at from 5-8 months old (although she was heck on wheels from 3-5 months of age).

My thought going forward is to be sure she is leashed and do a check of our "training beach" before even considering any off-leash training but also to incorporate the e-collar to tone train a better recall. Again, the sometimes-she-runs-and-barks while sometimes-she-wags-her-tail has made it tough to pin down the trigger.

Hopefully working to correct behaviors while simultaneously reinforcing pack dynamics will help get things back on track.

Thanks for the advice so far.

[shags]

I'm not really clear on what you're doing when your dog barks and carries on, but IME it works to be firm and tell them "Knock it off!" or "Enough!". You don't want to be telling her "it's OK, Girl, those are nice people" because ro her, "It's OK" means the barking is OK, not a reassurance that the people are nice.

Praise and treats are good things, but sometimes dogs need a little 'negativity' to help them know what behavior is expected or tolerable (or not).

*spitting on her food? No offense, but ick!*

[Timewise65]

Is your dog obedience trained? Does this dog stay on heel until released? Do you have an obedient 'recall' on this dog. If any of these are not in place, go to another or an obedience class and get the basics trained. Dog don't do bad things, they only do bad things when we fail to train them.

If you decided to use a e collar in any way, get a professional to work with you on collar conditioning the dog....these collars will do more harm than good, if the user and dog are not thoroughly trained, that includes using vibrate or sound functions. You have to have an obedience trained dog before you start adding complexity in training, like a whistle, collar, clicker, etc.

Good Luck

[polmaise]

Use a Long line

[cjhills]

KyleRay:
the dog I have is a pup I bred and sold at eight weeks. The single female owner did a very good job of starting her but the dog has got very protective of her and her possessions. She tried the animal behavior trainers and spent a lot of money on the trainers. She has a perfect heel. sit, stay, come and numerous other commands. The dog will go thru every thing she knows if you stand there with a handful of treats. Some of these trainers would give her treats to distract her when she barked at people. I see that as a reward for barking.
When you describe your dog you could be describing her. She is the nicest dog you would ever meet,but she needs a leader and if she does not get it she will do it herself.
She has got progressively worse, until she was becoming dangerous. When she brought her back the dog would try to scare off anybody who came near her owner or her truck. Be aware that the dog does not have to bite to be declared a dangerous dog. I can now walk her through any crowd with no issues and hope she can return to her owner this weekend. People always want to pet her that is a it scary.
Checking the beach and running elsewhere Is avoiding the situation. She ignored your command. She will do it again the time to get a handle on it is now.
These are usually very intelligent dogs who are very good at manipulating people. Watch for signs.
It is not rocket science make sure she understands who leads the pack, that she does not need to protect you and barking at strangers is unacceptable.......................Cj

[KyleRay]

TIMEWISE65 -- She heels but she will not maintain until released, she usually is reminded with a "heel" command and then falls into place. She has an obedient recall thus far but, she chose to ignore it when saw the fishermen down the beach, so obviously that's a concern. Both items of concern and perhaps you are right in suggesting obedience class. Despite the fact that I feel caught a little off guard that this behavior escalated to this point so quickly, I absolutely agree with your comment that "dogs don't do bad thing, they only do bad things when we fail to train them."

SHAGS -- She doesn't bark at our neighbors incessantly barking pack of dogs, doesn't bark at cats or squirrels and doesn't much bark in the house aside from an occasional small, short, "ruff."
We do not have a solid "ENOUGH!" type command. I have taught her "quiet" but, as of lately I don't know if it's working honestly. I certainly do not give her soothing words when this happens...she got a firm "NO! BAD DOG! BAD DOG!" and walked by the collar back to the pickup, then told to lie down in the back until we got home.
(yeah, the spitting. I figured if I did it and she didn't eat it, hey, good quick litmus test. If not, well, no harm no foul. I don't do this as a matter of practice by any means).

I don't know, it looks like revisiting an obedience class might be a good move.
Will digest this information and see what is a good next move.

[Sharon]

I have a rescue terrier who has a similar problem... is aggressive when on leash, towards strangers . No problem off leash. I muzzle him in when walking on leash in public - problem solved for me.
My point being that with dogs like yours and my terrier , we can't take chances in public, while we try to figure out how to solve the problem. I'm not convinced this problem can be solved - it's part of who the dog is not due to poor training imo. Not everything can be fixed. Where did you get your dog? What is the breeder saying?


"dogs don't do bad things ; they only do bad things when we fail to train them." quote ie every dog can be fixed... 50 years of dogs and I don't agree with this statement.

[polmaise]

I have a rescue terrier who has a similar problem... is aggressive when on leash, towards strangers . No problem off leash. quote]

When we walk on a leash, she actually does really well.

Not the same thing for the OP Sharon .

[Sharon]

I realize that , but it was the principles of those kind of situations that I was promoting.

( How about giving us your take on the CH cocker spaniel video Neil posted ? What bird is that?)

[polmaise]

( How about giving us your take on the CH cocker spaniel video Neil posted ? What bird is that?)

Pheasant

[gonehuntin']

I would most stronly disagree that your dog has a strong recall. The dog bolts right out of control when off leash and she sees other people and you can't stop her or call her back. Sounds to me like she neither knows WHOA or HERE. If she did you could stop her or recall her. Teach her whoa and de-bolt the dog. The dog should come when you call it anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

[Timewise65]

KyleRay...........
This is perfectly normal for an 8 month old pup! Rarely have I seen a dog that age that is completely trained on recalls, heel, etc. If you don't believe me go watch a few field trials or hunt tests watching dogs that are less then 18 months old. Good training and Maturity are two keys for a dog to become completely under control in field settings. Most of us suffer some 'perceived set-backs' when our dogs do not develop as fast as we think they should. Back to school, patients will win the day!

Good Luck and enjoy the ride, they are only with us a short time!

[polmaise]

We have an 8 month old, spayed GSP and we're having the issue of her running barking at people but, only sometimes.

Take a step back and read that sentence again?..
...........
There are thousands of posts regarding different behaviours that the dog does with thousands of requests on how to fix the 'dog'.
There are very few that post regarding the dogs owner(s) behaviour which either led to the issue or is causing the issue (without intent of course) .
More Importantly would be 'what is the owner(s) actually doing at that very moment in time when the 'Dog' is exhibiting the behaviour ?.
...........
Regarding this particular post ,we can assume that this 8 month old puppy never done this behaviour when it was on day one with the owner ? so it must have developed at some point and 'allowed' to continue ?
In some circumstances when any dog is exhibiting unwanted behaviours in obedience or social skills within a 'Human environment' any verbal correction such as raised voice etc by the owners can and does get interpreted by the dog as 'Encouragement' ?? especially when 'remote' from the owner

8 month old 'adolescent' dogs are being asked a lot by their owners in a public park with distractions and attractions along with 'unknown factors' ?
...........................
Perhaps some should ask themselves ''Why is my dog that I feed and keep warm and care for'' finding a 2 week old scent of rabbit poo more interesting than me ?..
Which is why I suggested the 'Long Line'. Used as a 'transition' to off lead in public places. The dog can be remote of the handler but a quick tug on the line should be enough to communicate with the dog 'interrupting' any undesired reaction of the dog and reduce the opportunities of continuing .After a period of time the behaviour becomes 'extinct' .....Only if the owner is 'consistent' .

Have a nice day in the park

[crackerd]

We have an 8 month old, spayed GSP and we're having the issue of her running barking at people but, only sometimes.

Take a step back and read that sentence again?...

Get a basenji, then you'll have the issue of her running at people, but, only sometimes but never barking at them...

If you're not training the dog, the dog's training you regards - just like Polmaise said.

MG