Lucky you asked now! At 10 months a pup is totally retrainable in matters like this, but won't be easily redirected for much longer.
I suspect that this is "frustration barking", but could not know for sure without more information about your dog's habits. It sounds like at first your pup loved kids, maybe can see them through a fence or window, but never get to them?
Has your pup ever been abused? Try doing an abused dog test to see if some brat didn't kick her...You can search google for ways to test your dog for various kinds of abuse. If your dog seems skittish to abuse triggers, then it may be fear barking...that would require a trip to a behaviorist.
Time to refocus the behavior using positive methods. This is going to take a few weeks at best, a few years at worst. Since your pup is young, but in two months will "solidify' her personality, I can't stress to you enough the importance of going into training classes right away and mentioning this issue with a trainer.
Go for a class that uses "clicker training" if you haven't already done so.
Clicker training has good results for redirected undesirable behavior in toy breeds and converting naughtiness into a pleasent learning experience. "No" should be a rarely used word. From now on, you need to focus on the positive and stop all punishments. The worst punishment for a dog is to be ignored, and that's the extent of my show of displeasure. Read about clicker training and try it out!
You need to condition the dog to focus on you when meeting streangers. There are some easy ways to build this up:
1. begin in the home, have somone familiar come over. At the same time, have a bowel-full of steak bits chopped down to the size of raisons. Have the person do funny attention-getting things without calling her by name or command. When they do this, call her name. When she looks at you, give a steak bit.
2. Play the name game 100 times a week. For some delicious morsel, call her name, when she looks at you, give a treat. Never use her name or your commands to call her for a punishment or something sucky. You are upping the value of her name as a positive thing. this is very important for commanding attention and developing a reliable recall (Come) later during emergencies and distractions.
3. After she reliably expects a treat with her name, take it outside and go to a quiet corner of the yard or a nearby park. Go where kids can be heard, but not seen. Practice the name game. Practice other obedience drills. Your class should give you lots to be working on. The point is to keep her eyes on you in a distracting place. For the right treat, you better believe she will do this. Eventually the treat becomes less important...but not at this stage.
4. Gradually work your way closer to children as you do this, have her sit stay while kids play nearby. With a kid next to you, practice the name game. Will she be a growly brat with steak to be had? (keep the high value treats like steak for the most important moments)
5. Eventually have kids come and pet her, while she looks at you. When she allows a child to pet her, give her a "jackpot". Such as the whole bowl of steak bits, or whatever you feel is ok to feed her as a gargantuant treat.
Continue training until she greats all children with good manors. This should be reinforced when opportunity arrises. In the park playing? See a kid running up to you? This is a chance to reinforce the lessons. Get out the treat bag and do the name game while she's being pet by the child. Never stop drilling the important skills.
At your dogs age, this should go quickly and easily, especially with a training class and a professional trainer involved. |