FEAR OF PEOPLE

Many of the dogs that are adopted from animal, shelters, and humane societies will possibly have some sort of a fear of people. This is often attributed to the animal's past, and a person or people that have had a negative impact some way in the dog's life.

You will find that most of these dogs are cooler colored dogs such as Green Dogs or Blue Dogs. Again, charactreristics of the cooler colored dogs are animals that will be cautious, and might have a fear of people, stationary objects, or moving objects.

When you find out the dog is afraid of people, it is imperative you find out as much information as possible about this person. Here are some examples:

If your dog is afraid of people, one of the first things you need to ask yourself is, “how long has this been happening?” The longer the dog has had a chance to exhibit this fear, the more difficult it normally is to correct. If this is a dog that has just been adopted or rescued, remember that you do not know the dog’s history. But you have to assume that if the animal has some sort of fear towards people that it has almost always come from some negative experience in the past. This could have come from the way the animal was trained, abuse, the lack of relationship between dog and owner, or the way the animal was cared for.

One of the things that I recommend is to try to identify and see if you can single out a specific thing. For example, your dog might have a fear of people in uniforms, people in hats, men, or women. Another variable is the place or area the animal might show his or her fear. Does it happen only in your home? Does it happen in your home and front yard? Does it happen anywhere? Does it happen anywhere but not in your home? These are some very important questions that need to be answered before trying to deal with this behavior.

You are going to want to make sure you deal with this issue based on your dog's perosnality or color. If you have not read about my color scheme in training, and how it works, click here>>

If you have a GREEN DOG that has some fear, allowing this fear of some people the opportunity to escalate and grow is one of the biggest mistakes an owner can make. Once a GREEN DOG is allowed to manifest this fear over and over, he can very easily move into becoming a BLUE DOG. Once he becomes BLUE, he can begin to show signs of fear aggression towards that specific person he or she is afraid of. Remember that we want the GREEN DOG to move toward the center of the spectrum toward a YELLOW and not BLUE. As always, when you are training a BLUE DOG, you will see that your job is going to be a little more challenging as you read on.

The same thing applies to the ORANGE DOG. If the ORANGE DOG has some sort of unsure ness about a specific person, it is essential you catch this early and not allow it to escalate. Like the GREEN DOG, once an ORANGE DOG is allowed to manifest this unsure ness over and over, he can very easily move farther away from the center of the spectrum, and in this case, closer to a RED DOG. Once your ORANGE DOG becomes RED, he can then begin to show signs of aggression towards that specific person. Remember that we want the ORANGE DOG to move toward the center of the spectrum toward a YELLOW and not RED. If you are already working with a RED DOG, your job is going to be a little more difficult as you read on.

You might notice that there is no YELLOW DOG here. The reason is that a mellow YELLOW DOG is that “middle of the road” laid back dog, that nothing seems to phase. You should not have a problem with a YELLOW DOG being afraid of objects or things.

I am always inclined to first begin with REDIRECTION. Again, when we redirect the animal, we are simply redirecting the animal’s focus onto something else other than the object or thing the animal is fixating on. What we are going to want to do is teach the dog that this object or thing is something positive. The degree of fear of the object or thing will play a major role into how long this will take to train.

With redirection, we are simply redirecting the dog into something other than the dog's fear of the person. The way I would start is by having the person the dog is afraid of giving the dog a high vlue treat or a Bil-Jac treat just a few times a day. You want to leave the dog "wanting more", so it is essential you keep the sessions just a few seconds. Over the course of time, your dog is going to begin looking for that person and wondering where he or she is. This is how the redirection works. The dog will take it upon himself to see that person as a positive thing and no longer a negative thing.

TRAINING TOOLS

If you are training a dog that shows a lot of fear of specific people or a person, it is a good idea to have something that will give you as much control as possible. As far as leashes go, I would highly recommend some very strong leather leash that is comfortable on your hands, and also strong for a pulling dog that might want to pull in the opposite direction.

I would also recommend one any kind of collar that will give your optimum control for RED or ORANGE DOGS such as my alternative training collar, a chain collar, a head harness, or a pinch collar for very unique pulling situations.

COMMON LINKS:

FEAR OF STATIONARY OBJECTS

FEAR OF MOVING OBJECTS

REDIRECTION

 

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