Tips to Help a Anxious Rescue Dog Warm Up to Strangers

By: David Codr

Published Date: October 23, 2020

Henry and Amy scaled - Tips to Help a Anxious Rescue Dog Warm Up to Strangers

For this Glenwood Iowa dog training session we share tips on how to introduce an anxious dog to new people to help 7 year-old Border Collie Whippet mix Henry (pictured here on the left with his roomie 15 year-old Annie’s rear in the background).

Knowing the dog was fearful around new people, I called ahead and arranged for Henry’s guardians to bring him out to meet us using some dog behaviorist tricks.

Anytime you are working with a scared dog, letting them approach you is one of the best ways to set up a positive greeting. I wanted to make it easy for the guardians to recreate this positive first encounter technique with new people so we filmed it a third time so that their friends and neighbors who want to come by and help can get instructions on this easy way to help a fearful dog meet strangers in a positive and relaxed way.

Id like to see the guardians have one or more people drop by each week (more is better) to practice this secret to helping anxious dogs feel comfortable when meeting new people. The idea is to stack one positive experience on top of another until the dog is able to do greetings without barking or lunging which.

As a dog behaviorist, I always enjoy helping scared dogs learn that meeting new people is a good thing. It will take time and practice, but Henry responded so well to this method to help ferful dogs feel relaxed Im betting this fear of meeting new people will soon be a thing of the past.

We shared a number of other tips including suggesting the guardians get Amy a Halo to stop Amy from crashing into things, Cosequin to help with her joints and many others. To help the humans remember them all, we recorded a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.

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This post was written by: David Codr