What To Do When a Dog Fears Strangers

Published Date: November 8, 2025

For this Culver City dog training session we worked with 7 year-old Husky mix Uni; sharing tips to help when a dog fears strangers.

Because Uni is afraid of meeting new people, I asked her guardian to bring her outside to meet me in an open grassy area near their apartment complex.

When I work with a scared dog, I do everything I can to make things easier. A large, quiet, outdoor space provides a wonderful assortment of distractions and the lack of confinement helps many dogs feel more comfortable.

It also helps me avoid invading the dog’s space. People often don’t think of it that way, but when you walk into a house with a scared dog who doesn’t want you to be there, the dog is forced to accept them, even if they dont want them there.

I was sitting down when Uni and her guardian approached. I made sure to hold still and avoided any direct eye contact. Dogs often interpret direct or extended stare as a challenge.

I was hoping that she would come over to give me a sniff but she got a little stuck. I pulled out some high value treats and tossed a few on the ground near her. Unfortunately after sniffing them, she turned up her nose.

She also appeared to be twitchy, snapping her head around at any noise and held her body in a stiff tight posture while standing and refusing to sit down. Her guardian asked her to sit a few times but I asked him to stop.

One of the ways that I determine if a dog is comfortable is to see if they will take a treat (and I have amazing treats) or sit down the first time I ask. If a dog doesn’t do those things (provided it knows how to sit), it’s often a safe bet that it is uncomfortable or you’re dealing with a scared dog.

When a dog fears strangers, they usually keep their distance, walk slowly, often stopping with incomplete body movements (leg in an odd position) and like to remain in a standing position so that they can run away instantly.

I used a few Dog Behaviorist tricks to help her feel more comfortable and within a few minutes she was taking treats from her guardian as well from as my hand.

This is great progress but it was quickly in jeopardy. A dad brought out a young toddler to the area who was stumbling around and headed in our direction. I let him know that the dog fears strangers, but he said his daughter wasn’t interested while she continued walking towards us, lol.

Eventually they ventured off, but I could tell the encounter made Uni feel uncomfortable. Shortly after that, a woman approached with a small scared dog who started to bark at us.

We got up and moved away to help both dogs feel more comfortable. When a scared dog barks at someone, they’re trying to get them to move away. Another way to think about that would be that they’re trying to add more space or distance between Walking away helped both dogs feel more comfortable by increasing the distance between them.

With Uni feeling comfortable, we headed inside so that we could get to work.

I had already explained the concept of using a marker word to the guardian while we were sitting outside. I reminded him that he needs to walk around the house loading the word to make it more powerful in th enexty few days then he’d be done with that exercise.

I had walked him through a hand targeting exercise, but Uni was fairly uncomfortable and the distractions didn’t give us a chance to finish up. I promised I would add a link to that training video in this post.

Next, we went over an easy way to build a dog’s confidence, something I celebrating. This is probably the easiest way to train a dog and it also increases their confidence, helps and practice basic obedience, teaches the manners and deepen their respect for their human.

Frankly, it’s probably the most powerful lesson I share with my dog behavior clients, but it’s also the one that people ignore because it’s so easy. But it works by repetition, thats why 8ts so opowerful and easy. But it only works if you do it consistently.

We spent a few more minutes going over basics like how to read her body language, dog consent and cut off signals as well as cookie in the corner, a basic scent game.

Once we wrapped up our fundamentals, we started going through some practical exercises to help with some of Uni’s other dog behavior problems.

One of the exercises I covered will help with multiple problems, it’s called desensitization and counter conditioning. I used this exercise to help Uni stop getting upset when the mailman delivered mail through the mail slot.

While the guardian can easily stop Uni from shredding the mail or getting mad when things come through the mail slot, he can use the same process to help her feel more comfortable with sounds outside of their apartment. Many scared dogs are simply reacting to things that they don’t understand and unknown sounds are a very common trigger.

Because Uni sometimes shreds the mail that comes through the slot, I walked her guardian through a leave it exercise. I was able to practice this with her myself first to give him a chance to see it done. Within two minutes, Uni was sitting on the floor while he dropped treats while she looked up at him instead of trying to lick up the treats.

Tips to Help When a Dog Fears Strangers

While one of the main things the guardian wanted to work on was Uni getting upset about the mail being delivered, I knew that we really needed to focus on her fear of new people.

When your dog fears strangers, they can communicate how they feel in many ways. Some dogs bark, others lunge and some dogs obviously will bite if the person doesn’t move away.

There are other ways that a scared dog may react including freezing, refusing to look at the person or trying to run away. If your dog wants to move away from something it doesn’t like, it is always a smart idea to let them do so unless it’s unsafe.

I suggested that the guardian bring Uni out to meet any new people outside. I detailed how to set this up in Uni’s roadmap to success video at the bottom of this post. I’d love to see Uni’s guardian using all of these techniques that help when a dog fears strangers.

We call these “set ups” and that’s just what they are. We are arranging the situation and influencing it as much as we can so that it is a positive association for the dog. In the dog training industry we call achieving this as “creating a positive emotional response.”

But I also wanted to go over an easy way to help shy dogs meet people. It’s a combination of the number of different exercises that I’ve used over the years, I call the eye contact game.

If your dog fears strangers or meeting new people, you should definitely check out the free positive dog training video below.

The great thing about this exercise to help a fearful dog meet a stranger is how easy it is. The dog has the ability to move anywhere they want and do anything they want. That freedom to move and create space makes dogs feel empowered and more comfortable.

WAnd for this exercise, when the dog makes eye contact with the stranger, good things happen. Add in the special twist that I do after the dog makes eye contact, and thats why this helps the dog immediately feel more comfortable. But the best part is it motivates the dog to want to approach the person on their own.

Many dog trainers will tell people to drop treats between the dog and whatever it is scared of. Well this may seem fine, the dog is not acting on how it feels. It’s simply trying to get a treat.

I’ve probably worked on hundreds of cases where the dog fear of strangers and this is probably the best exercise that I’ve used so far.

I recommended that Uni’s guardian arranged to have a friend come over each week for a few weeks in a row so they can practice this exercise to help when a dog fear of strangers or meeting new people for the first time.

By the end of the session, Uni was very relaxed, so we decided to end things on a good note.

Since Uni’s Guardian is such a nice person and I covered so much is this in-home Culver City dog training session, I pulled out my camera to record a roadmap to success summary video that you can check out below.