How to Stop Puppy Growling When Meeting Strangers
By: David Codr
Published Date: June 15, 2026
For this Omaha puppy training session we worked with Diesel, a 10 month-old Weimaraner / Blue Heeler mix pup. His guardian set up this training session to learn more about how to stop puppy growling when meeting new people.
Growling is a form of communication, most commonly used as a warning. I always like to tell my clients that I interpret a dog or puppy growling as saying “I feel uncomfortable,” or “I disagree.” Unfortunately many people think of puppy growling as being aggressive. However it’s actually the opposite.
When a dog is growling, it’s trying to stop something from happening or get the thing to move away.
We often forget that dogs don’t have license to go wherever they want. We have them on a leash or they are trapped inside of our home.
Imagine that you were chained up next to something that was unfamiliar and scary to you. How would that make you feel? Its a safe bet that you would do a human analog of growling if you were uncomfortable.
When you work with dog behavior it’s always best to try to identify why the dog is having an emotional response than chase the symptons of the condition. Puppy growing isnt the problem. Situations that make Deisel feel the need to growl is how to fix this behavior issue.
In Diesel’s case the puppy growling is most likely a matter of him not being sufficiently socialized when he was a young puppy. Puppies go through something called the critical socialization period from 3-16 weeks. This is the most important developmental time that any dog goes through and what happens during this part of their life will influence how they look at things for the rest of their life.
Properly socializing this dog is heavy emphasis on our puppy classes. Sadly, many people focus on training their dogs when they are puppies. But you can train a dog it’s entire life, you can only develop their social skills and confidence when they are young.
What Causes Puppy Growling
I sat down with Diesel’s guardian to discuss when he started this puppy growling and what situations seemed to trigger the behavior. Whenever I’m called to stop puppy growling, I always want to get a feel for the pup’s day-to-day life. People with an insecure puppy often ask me why do puppies growl? More often than not its a lack of early exposure.
I asked Diesel’s guardians about his time as a young puppy. If he went to puppy class or met a large number of dogs and people.
Once I found out that Diesel did not have those experiences when he was younger, I realized that his puppy growling was a result of fear and anxiety. Its common for an insecure puppy or adult dogs to growl to make things they dont like go away.
How to Stop Puppy Growling
The best way to stop puppy growling is to make sure that the thing that caused the pup to feel uncomfortable stops or goes away, while simultaneously changing how it feels about the situation.
A very common denominator in puppy and dog behavior problems is confusing communication. Many people give attention for unwanted behaviors and are very inconsistent when rewarding desired behaviors. Overt ime this causes the dog to become confused. And just like humans, a confused dog is most likely to be less comfortable and confident. When its young, you can easily end up with some puppy growling.
I spent the next several minutes going over the importance of using a marker word to help Diesel understand when he did things that his humans liked. This is one of the first lessons we go over in our in-home sessions as well as our puppy classes because its a ffoundational part of positive dog training.
If you’d like to learn how to use a marker word for your own dog or puppy, you can check out the free positive Dog training video we share with our puppy class parents below.
By consistently using the marker word the instant that Diesel does any action his guardians like or want to see more of, the puppy will start offering them more frequently.
A great way to amplify this connection is something we call celebrating. Celebrating is one of the easiest things you can do to train a dog or puppy, provided you get into a habit of doing it. It took a couple of miniutes, but the guardian caught on and started to reward Diesel for the behaviors he wanted. As this went on, you could see Diesel start to sit up taller and walk with more confidence. Its amazing how quickly positive puppy training makes an impact.
After we wrapped up the discussion on how to celebrate desired behaviors, we talked about how to respond when Diesel was doing his puppy growling.
I pointed out that Diesel wasn’t biting or lunging, he simply wanted more space. If his guardians can learn to recognize his cut off signals and move him away from things that he communicates he is not comfortable with, they take away the need for any puppy growling.
Obviously this involves paying attention to Diesel when out and about. But if the guardians can take a mental note of the types of people or situations or locations where Diesel has done his puppy growling, they can avoid those situations. That is, unless they’re ready to start helping him create a positive association by practicing the engage disengange game. or creating a positive association.
A good activity to do this would be meeting new people. I explained that for dogs, a front facing approach is often considered confrontational. Leaning over a dog is considered intimidating and when dogs want to dominate one another they often do this by initiating contact on top of the dog head.
This is most likely how most people meet Diesel for the first time. And that’s a very bad set up. Since Diesel doesn’t like it, he has started to communicate that through puppy growling.
But if the guardians can help communicate to new people that he will feels more comfortable if they turn to the side and then avoid petting him on top of the head, he will start to feel more comfortable.
Another way to stop puppy growling is to carry treats and give them to anyone who asks to pet him. So instead of an invasive hand, Diesel gets a treat. With enough practice, this can cause him to have a positive emotional response with strangers as opposed to being uncomfortable or scared.
I made sure to remind the guardian to also tell strangers that he loves being petted under his chin after giving him the treat. This will preemptively stop the people from reflexively petting him on top of his head and causing diesel to feel uncomfortable. If that happens, it won’t be surprising if we get more puppy growling.
I also showed the guardian a hand targeting exercise. This is an exercise that we use to help lure dogs into position without having to physically manipulate them. But it has an additional benefit; it can help us identify if a dog wants to engage with someone or not.
If the guardians practice this exercise with themselves until he gets comfortable, they can use it later with guests. That way, when they have a guest come over, they can play this game and then eventually ask the guest to take part. If Diesel turns his head away, or refuses to touch his nose to that stranger’s hand, he’s communicating he’s uncomfortable.
With this knowledge in hand, the guardians can then ask the guest to refrain from trying to pet or engage with Diesel. Giving him the opportunity to approach the guest on his own time will make him feel more comfortable and in control of the situation.
This small change can go a long ways towards stopping puppy growling because the thing that Diesel what doesn’t want to happen, doesn’t happen.
One of my main priorities in this session was to help the guardians understand that puppy growling is not aggression. It’s Diesel’s way of saying he feels uncomfortable. When you see it this way, it completely changes the dynamic.
By helping Diesel’s guardians learn how to read his body language and understand that his growling means he wants more space, they’re able to arrange much more favorable encounters and situations. This will have a cumulative effect on creating positive associations with new people, places and situations.
I was really happy to do this in-home Omaha dog training session because I know we made a real difference in diesel quality of life. By helping his humans better understand his needs, they will put him in positions to succeed rather than scenarios that create puppy growling.
To help the humans remember everything we covered in this session, we recorded a roadmap to success summary video that you can check out below.
Looking for the Easiest Way to Stop Puppy Growling? Click Here
Categorized in: Puppy Training
