teenage flake

[Azrael]

Alright, I've been getting conflicting advice on this. My seven month old puppy who up until recently has been perfectly happy to meet new people and he still is okay meeting people when I take him to the dog park, but he will bark at people in the parking lot at my house, and if I have him up in the lobby w/ me at work he barks at people, he'll also bark at people on walks occasionally. Anyway, he's been coming to work w/ me since he was ten weeks old and he's always been in the lobby greeting people. Some people say this i something I should discipline, but in the sticky on this forum it describes what he's doing as teenage flakiness that should be ignored. I'm leaning more towards ignoring it, but that's hard to do when someone is standing there w/ my dog barking at them, I'd feel like a jerk if I just let him do it. So I've stopped keeping him in the lobby w/ me most of the time to just avoid the whole situation, but I'd like some opinions on this.

[debbiej]

I would not ignore it, in fact it really is impossible to ignore a large barking dog. you won't solve anything if you stop taking him where he will meet people, you will in fact make it worse. If it is too disruptive at work, perhaps you could put him in situations where he can get used to meeting people politely. My dog used to do this when I first got her, she was actually quite intimidating. I took her everywhere with me, teaching her to sit and be quiet when we met people. She got a sharp correction for firing off at people. You can carry treats and ask willing people you meet to give her a treat for sitting nicely.

[frontierrots]

We've alked about this before I just don't remember what the posts were called

Many Rotts go through a teen weirdo phase sometime after 6 months and it's usually done by 18 months

I taught my last flakey teen to "say hi" to people and come back to me for the treat. Having strangers give the treats can work but much of this teen crap is insecurity. They are still a pup but going through physical and mental changes and puberty and while they are still a baby they have brain and physical reactions they don't understand and for some that comes out as fearfulness, barking, treat grabbing etc

Having strangers give treats can be too much social pressure for a pup going throughthis and they can get very grabby to take the treat they want from the stranger they fear. Thus my dogs learn say hi, they have to go up and get a pat then come back to me for the treat

When we entered a building was a big trigger and so I started holding a treat in the face as we entered. Then sat and gave the treat. That difused a lot of it

It's mostly continued training, vigilence on your part to know what is going to flake him out and strong reinforcements (great treats etc) for confident behavior. Corrections usually make it lots worse because it is insecurity based.

[Azrael]

Frontie, thank you, thats what I've been trying to do then I had a woman who called herself a trainer at some pet store tell me that I should be correcting him not encouraging him to sit and giving him treats when he did. i told her my understanding was that encouraging him to do someting right and giving him treats would build confidence better than yanking on his leash and yelling in his face. I still left there very confused and anxious that I was doing the wrong thing and making him more fearful.

This is mostly frustrating because I'm in school to be a dog trainer right now, I admit I'm not very far along at the moment, but I've given small bits of advice to some clients at the boarding facility I work at that has helped them, but then my own dogs go and do something that completely throws me off and I have no idea what to do.

Like i said he has been fine until about a month ago, he was ahappy go lucky puppy, and he still is for he most part, it just seems like he's all ofa sudden confused about what he should be doing in some situations, even when it's familiar and he's been there a thousand times.