Guest Anonymous Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 I am the new mommy of a 13 week old German Shepherd puppy. She is a lovely little puppy, very attached to me, slightly timid of male strangers and very stand-offish to females. When we meet new people while out on walks, she will slowly approach males, sometimes with a few barks but will quiet down when they offer their hand to sniff. If a woman approaches, she will hang behind me or between my feet and bark her head off. It takes a great deal of coaxing and a good deal of time for her to calm down and even go to the woman's offered hand. Most times she just won't... She was frightened the day after we got her by a neighbor who has one of those "I have smoked for 35 years" low, low voices, which she attempted to bring up to "baby talk" level. When she did, she sounded exactly like a yelping or whining dog.. It scared my pup to death. She even began to howl. Since then, she has been afraid of unknown women. What can I do about this? Should I repremand her for barking at approaching strangers? (She also barks at dogs, but is much more curious about them and calms down quicker..) I am worried that she will become unapproachable at all. I Know that the GSD temprament is one that is stand-offish to strangers but I'm thinking tat her back-off barking is taking it to the next level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric Posted March 17, 2004 Share Posted March 17, 2004 First of all, reprimanding her will only cause the problem to get worse as she will associate strangers with something bad. One trick is to always carry treats with you and give them to the other person to feed her. She will then start associating meeting people with something good. The other point would be to introduce her to as many people and situations as possbible. Is this your first GSD? GSD pups are typically quite shy, but they blossom when then hit 1 or 2 years of age. We took our GSD, Travis, to the local dog park when he was about 3 months old. He sat in between our legs and didn't budge. He was terrified of everything. After a few months, he started venturing out further and further until he was running around with this big bro Sam. Now, at 4 years of age, he is very confident. Understand, however, that at best your GSD will likely remain somewhat aloof and indifferent of strangers. Pic of Travis below [url]http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=6888007[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted March 17, 2004 Share Posted March 17, 2004 Yes, she is my first German Shepherd and that is why I was a little concerned. I understand they can become fearful if not socialized properly. But my instinct was that correcting the barking was not the right way to go. I started to use the treats method when I met new people while walking her. I mentioned that at my vets when we were there for our first visit and they said not to have anyone give treats to the puppy. That she should not get used to other people giving her food. They said that she would associate with the food and not the people she was meeting. So I wasn't sure where to go with that. I am glad to hear that your boy got over it all though. I'll just continue what I was doing and hope that enrollment in a puppy class will help as well. Thanks so much for your response! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black GSD Posted March 17, 2004 Share Posted March 17, 2004 Delrah, Check your private messages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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