How to Train a Fearful Dog to Warm up to New People

By: Sam Kanouse

Published Date: March 20, 2018

IMG 3781 - How to Train a Fearful Dog to Warm up to New People

In this Omaha puppy training session we worked with Cedric a seven-month-old Black Mouth Cur who who was a shy dog that needed help warming up to new people.

When I first arrived Cedric was at the door to greet me and was very friendly, but as I chatted with his guardians I was able to see more of his low confidence. Cedric was a rescue puppy that likely suffered from some early life stressful situations which made him fearful of new people. To help Cedric overcome his fear of new people we used positive reinforcement by giving him treats for approaching people and tossing them on the ground if he was particularly nervous. To see how I helped Cedric overcome this fear you can watch the video below.

As you can see in the video above Cedric started to come way outside of his comfort zone and start working for his food. We were able to work on training him on the sit command. The guardians will want to continue to use positive reinforcement to help Cedric overcome his fear of new people. Initially they will want to focus on the home family and then expand to building up his confidence with other family members and friends over time.

To keep up with this good behavior the guardians will want to keep Petting with a Purpose to reward Cedric for his good behavior. They will also want to remember to take things slow with Cedric so he can build up trust with his new wonderful family. We wrapped up Cedric’s puppy behavior session with his Roadmap to Success, which you can watch below.

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This post was written by: Sam Kanouse