Helping a CoronaVirus Puppy Get Over Her Fear of Meeting New People

By: David Codr

Published Date: October 12, 2020

Lulu and Cooper scaled - Helping a CoronaVirus Puppy Get Over Her Fear of Meeting New People

For this Concil Bluffs puppy training session we worked with Copper (right, a 4 year-old Boxer) and Lulu (left) a 8 month-old Cane Corso who is scared of meeting new people due to limited socialization as a puppy during CoronaVirus.

Because of the stay at home orders, Lulu didnt get sufficiently socialzied during her Critical Socializaiton Period. This is the most important developmental period puppies go through. If you don’t expose a puppy to a variety of people, places, dogs, puppies and things, they can be insecure and fearful when meeting new people or being around these things.

Knowing the puppy was scared of meeting strangers, we set up a greeting to help her feel more relaxed and at ease. We were sitting with our sides and back to the pup, we stayed still to give her the ability to sniff us and move away at her pleasure. Letting a dog or puppy approach you and sniff you over before you try to interact with them is a polite and when dealing with a fearful pup. These things can be the difference between a confidence building meeting and one that causes the pup to feel even more insecure about new people. We also avoided direct eye contact or trying to talk to or per Lulu. We let her drive, but did too treats on the ground between us and behind the puppy to help motivate her to move about.

To help the puppy get over this fear of meeting strangers, we filmed some tips on how to introduce a fearful puppy to new people in a positive way. You can learn how to help a fearful puppy get over their fear of meeting stragers by waching the free positive puppy training video below.

Id like to see Lulu’s guardians use these tips to help a fearful puppy warm up to new people often; arranging at least one new person to come to their home each week (following the steps in the above video). Since puppies start solifdifying their true personality at 9 months, there is no time to waste. I recommended a minimum of one new person practice this greeting with Lulu each week, but if it were me, Id be doing it daily. Being a breed that can be intimidating, building up Lulu’s confidence in meeting stragers through these greeting tips needs to be a high priority for the next 4 months.

To help Lulu’s guardians remember all the positive puppy behavior tips we shared in this in home Council Bluffs puppy training session, I filmed a roadmap to success video that you can watch below.

Roadmap

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This post was written by: David Codr