Amusingly, the example of humans that are scared of dogs most reminded me of my rescue dog who was scared of humans! Common internet advice is to use food to lure the dog closer to humans. That way they can associate new humans with tasty treats.
While this might work fine for dogs that are just mildly suspicious of strangers, it is actually bad for fearful dogs and reinforces the fear/stress response in the way Scott describes. Not knowing this, we tried the typical route and were surprised when our dog got even more reactive towards people. If she saw us talking to people, this was a sign that WE MIGHT MAKE HER GO TO THE PERSON (even though we never forced her, but luring her with treats was enough), so now just seeing us talking to people was enough to raise her stress levels and get a reaction.
I got a very good trainer, and she used the example of how if your boss hands you a paycheck while holding a gun to your head, the goodness of the paycheck doesn’t overcome the gun to your head.
Instead of trying to get her to go near strangers, we told all strangers to completely ignore her. We taught her to run away from strangers, and tossed treats away from the strangers. If a stranger is nearby or even talking to me, they won’t do anything scary like “look at her” (her previous life taught her that Attention From Humans is Dangerous), but instead she gets treats for running away.
Now she is still a little shy around strangers, and might bark once while running away if someone freaks her out a bit, but she volunteers to go up to people of her own will, and NOW we let strangers give her treats if she is willingly going up to them and sniffing around their hands without any prompting from any of us (and I continue to give her treats if she runs away as well)
Amusingly, the example of humans that are scared of dogs most reminded me of my rescue dog who was scared of humans! Common internet advice is to use food to lure the dog closer to humans. That way they can associate new humans with tasty treats.
While this might work fine for dogs that are just mildly suspicious of strangers, it is actually bad for fearful dogs and reinforces the fear/stress response in the way Scott describes. Not knowing this, we tried the typical route and were surprised when our dog got even more reactive towards people. If she saw us talking to people, this was a sign that WE MIGHT MAKE HER GO TO THE PERSON (even though we never forced her, but luring her with treats was enough), so now just seeing us talking to people was enough to raise her stress levels and get a reaction.
I got a very good trainer, and she used the example of how if your boss hands you a paycheck while holding a gun to your head, the goodness of the paycheck doesn’t overcome the gun to your head.
Instead of trying to get her to go near strangers, we told all strangers to completely ignore her. We taught her to run away from strangers, and tossed treats away from the strangers. If a stranger is nearby or even talking to me, they won’t do anything scary like “look at her” (her previous life taught her that Attention From Humans is Dangerous), but instead she gets treats for running away.
Now she is still a little shy around strangers, and might bark once while running away if someone freaks her out a bit, but she volunteers to go up to people of her own will, and NOW we let strangers give her treats if she is willingly going up to them and sniffing around their hands without any prompting from any of us (and I continue to give her treats if she runs away as well)