Helping a Young Dog Stop Reacting Fearfully to Strangers

In this Omaha puppy training session, we share tips to help 6-month-old German Shepherd Asia. These tips can help any puppy or young dog stop reacting fearfully to strangers.

I arrived for the session while the guardian was coming back from a walk. I took this chance to share some puppy behavior tips. This helped her feel more relaxed and comfortable when meeting me. The approach had mixed results with the puppy spending some time relaxed and at other times moving back in a fearful way.

Tips to Help a Dog Stop Reacting Fearfully to Strangers

We spent a lot of time talking about small things humans can do to help Asia relax. We also discussed what to avoid, like petting her when she is scared or not providing rules and structure. I think a big part of Asia’s behavior problems stem from her German Shepherd puppy breeder.

She was bred and spent most of her time outside of the home before being adopted. While she showed some aggressive behavior, the key problem here is Asia is a fearful puppy. Her fears stem from not meeting many new people when she was young.

Puppies that spend their first few weeks in a barn or other wild places miss important socialization. It is common for a dog born outside a home to be scared of many things. They may not have seen these things often when they were puppies. Puppies are usually open to new experiences at that age.

Unfortunately Asia’s lack of early socialization almost definitely included humans. Dogs born on a farm often lack social skills with humans. This was true for Asia. Her guardians mentioned several things that I would consider a significant cause for concern from a breeder.

A rule of thumb is you want your puppy to meet at least 100 people (in a positive way) before they turn 3 months old. If everyone a puppy meets gives them love, attention, treats and pets while in their Critical Socialization Period, they are usually comfortable and confident when meeting new people.

If they did not practice meeting people positively during their CSP, it is normal for them to feel scared around new people. This is most certainly the case with Asia.

Utilizing Behavior Adjustment Training

We went outside to do some behavior adjustment training and recorded a video. However, after thinking about the session, I chose not to include it here. The first step in stopping Asia’s fearful behavior is going to start inside the home.

Although one of her guardians takes her for a short walk every day, she is in need of far more daily exercise. Your average dog needs at least 1 hour of exercise a day, but higher energy dogs and puppies (like Asia) need more.

I shared some tips. These include exercising before walks, walking when fewer people are around, and teaching the dog to run up and down the stairs. I also suggested playing scent games and fetch. Increasing Asia’s exercise to at least 1.25 hours a day will make solving her problems much easier.

Next we discussed the importance of rules, some rules to introduce and how to enforce them. Consistent enforcement of rules for at least 2 months will be critical for Asia to start seeing her humans acting like leaders.

The more she sees them like this, the more at ease she will feel in nervous situations. Just like a friend can boost your confidence when facing something new or stressful.

We also discussed ways to add structure like petting with a purpose. This is a great way to build a dog’s confidence. It helps them respect humans as leaders. They gain confidence by earning rewards instead of just receiving them.

Giving the dog rewards and attention when they organically offer desired behaviors will also help. I call this passive training and its probably one of the easiest and most effective way to train any dog.

I gave my camera to one of the guardians. I wanted to share tips to help the puppy. These tips would help the puppy stop being so scared. They would also help the puppy build positive feelings about new people.

While Asia shows some aggressive behavior to strangers, most of this is stemming from fear due to a lack of exposure and confidence. The guardians should invite people over. This will help Asia feel more comfortable. Practicing tips to stop dog aggression is important.

The key is to do this in a way that allows the dog to feel comfortable. Exercising her beforehand and keeping a good distance from new people can help. Short sessions will let Asia be around new people without reacting.

Easy Ways to Help a Fearful Dog

Another thing the guardians can do is to teach Asia some new tricks and commands. This is a great way to create a healthy leader-follower relationship. It helps build the puppy’s confidence.

It also gives the guardian options to distract the dog from things it fears. One way to help is to teach dogs to catch. This skill lets dogs interact from a distance. It is especially helpful for many fearful dogs.

I hope that as humans change the leader-follower dynamic with rules and structure, they can help her. By building her confidence with new skills, she can practice meeting new people in a low-pressure way. This should help reduce her fearful and aggressive behavior.

The guardians should notice some small changes right away. However, if there isn’t a clear improvement in a month, they should schedule a short 1-hour BAT session. This session will show them how to help a fearful dog learn to be calm and confident in controlled situations.

To help the guardians remember all the things we covered in this in-home puppy training session, we recorded a roadmap to success video that you can watch below.