My Yorkie, Lily, does the same thing! We have had her since she was 12 weeks old, and she has never had any bad experiences with people. I know this cause she is always with me when we are outside. One thing I know I did wrong when trying to socialize her, was I let too many people approach her on our walks. When she reached 7 months of age, her behavior changed somewhat. She started barking at everyone we met on our walks. She is not an unsocialized dog. We have attended puppy-classes, and classes in everyday-obedience. We walk everyday, and she comes with me to work and everywhere else. I felt helpless and clueless of what to do to make her stop barking at everyone, and I started to read a lot about behavior and dog training. About three months ago I started training her with a new technique I found, and it works! It takes time, nervousness is not something you can train away in a few days. My main goal is to make her associate strangers with something positive, and to be sure how she is expected to act. I do this with a clicker (you know those small boxes you press to make a clicking sound) and snacks.
I started with short walks and few obstacles (strangers). When I saw someone walking toward us, I put Lily at my side, and as soon as she spotted the stranger I "Clicked" and gave her a snack. (Of course I had trained inside with the clicker so that she knew the click means reward.) It is important not to click and reward if your dog has already started barking. But the very second the dog sees the stranger, this is when you click. The dog will then look up at you to get the snack.
If you do this as a rule, is consistent, the dog will realize that stranger approaching means "snacktime, contact mom". But it takes time! Really! At least with Lily it does. Sometimes she just HAS to bark, but she has gotten so much better. Now we can pass people while walking. She sees someone coming toward us, I call her to my side, and we have eye-contact while we walk pass the stranger. I then click as soon as the stranger is beside us, and she gets the reward as the stranger passes.
Of course some obstacles are larger that others. Lily gets really stressed when we meet children outside, and bikes. Children on bikes... Or bikes coming really fast. But we're working on it, and even that is going better. Yesterday we passed to small girls on their bikes without a single bark from Lily. Well, we can't really pass then yet, but we can halt, get eye-contact and let the children pass. I click when the children are a little distance away, and I click again when they are nearer. The snacks I give Lily then, I don't let go of, so she is busy nibbling at the snacks while the children pass. Also, I never pay much attention to that strangers myself, my full attention is toward Lily, to make her keep her attention on me.
This is my advise, and worth trying. All dogs are different, but this method is a 100% positive and at least it can't do any harm trying it. Patience is a must of course, as it is in all dog-training. |