lagomorphmonster;3300 said:
I have a bit of that issue as well. Totoro actually will approach men, sit still and submissive urinate for them, but she loves to jump up and greet women.
yeah, dogs that are timid or shy around people are usually more so around men than around women. (not all, but many are like this). My dog is much more at ease with female strangers than male strangers.
However, if children comes more than 3 feet from us, she starts to puff up and run, and if they try to pet her on the head, her eyes will bug out (whale eye).
from a dog's perspective, children can be very scary too! Children move around suddenly and unpredictably and often scream or make other loud sudden noises. Children also tend to grab at dogs quickly. If you're not already doing this, I would really tightly control all interactions between your dog and children, instruct children to stand still and to not pet the dog on top of her head. Instead, you can give them treats to hold out in the flat palm of their hand (no fingers!), and wait until Totoro will take treats from them and get more relaxed that way, then once she is more relaxed the kids can pet her. The key is to go slow so that Totoro doesn't get freaked out, take your time to get her bit by bit more relaxed and comfortable, before progressing to having people touching her or coming up close to her.
As a puppy, Totoro sometimes would scream when picked up by tall/big people, even though I know for a fact that she's never been traumatized in any way after 2 weeks of age.
Some dogs are shy, fearful, skittish, reactive or anxious simply because that is their inborn temperament and is despite having had a lot of early positive experiences (just means that it would be worse had there not been those positive experiences). My dog is one such dog when it comes to strangers - I've done more socializing with him (in a structured way) since he was a puppy than I have for any other dog I've owned, yet he's the only one who is fear-aggressive to strangers. my other dogs hardly had any structured socialization yet they were everyone's best friend immediately and I never had to worry about them scaring someone. But some other dogs just are not like that. part of it is breed-related - guarding breeds were bred to be more suspicious and wary of strangers. Within any litter or gene pool there will be variations among the puppies of the different traits including this one. So you can end up with some dogs inherently having a stronger suspicion or wariness than others.
It irks me when strangers jump and stick to the conclusion that he's a rescue and has been abused. Some dogs are just innately more fearful or timid or shy or wary or reactive to people than others, even if they have never ever had a single bad experience with a human in their lives. it's just in their nature to be more wary or suspicious of people than "regular" dogs, and if they feel pressured by humans rushing up to them or touching them when they're not yet ready for it, then what started out as a slight unease with that situation can develop into a greater fear later on.
Because of that, I haven't done a lot of training in public places after puppy class (which I'm sure creates a vicious circle, but it's so hard to prevent children from RUNNING up to her)
Trust me, I know EXACTLY what you are talking about because I struggle with this on a regular basis. And yes, it is a creating a vicious cycle. On the one hand, avoiding
uncontrolled situations is necessary so that part you are doing right, because if the dog ends up getting freaked out then it only worsens the problem, and the last thing you want to do is worsen the problem. And with a big dog (not just a small puppy), there is also the responsibility to "protect" the public from getting scared by your dog if he/she is fear-aggressive and ends up barking or lunging at people and scaring them. (It is the latter that concerns me more and what makes me avoid situations.)
On the other hand, avoiding ALL situations altogether may be a more comfortable thing to do because you can relax but it doesn't solve the problem it just puts it on the backburner, because fixing it requires exposing the dog to those exact same situations so he can form positive associations or get used to the situation. I've often struggled to find the balance between being so paranoid that I was avoiding everything and everyone (which meant no setbacks or alarms but no progress either), versus being overconfident and putting my dog into situations that he wasn't ready to handle yet and ending in a uncontrolled setback which led to people freaking him out and him in turn freaking them out too (he's a big dog and he alarm barks and lunges when he's freaked out and that scares people)
By the way, what is your non-reward marker?
I say "ah-ah", in a neutral tone, not in a stern tone.