[Britster]

If you are going to try and make this work.... it's going to take time and patience and the BF is going to have to understand that. What is Oliver's favorite food? I would get his highest form of reward, such as plain chicken breast, cheese, etc. You should have his favorite food or treat come out ONLY when he is around the boyfriend. He will then associate the BF with the good food. Don't have the BF just walk straight up to him and try to put food in his face... slowly have him drop a trail of food behind him as he walks so that Oliver may follow. I would tell the BF not to try and pet him for a while (a few weeks)... build up that trust and communication first and take things slow. Then maybe boyfriend can sit on the ground at his level and drop the food, slowly getting it closer and closer to the BF but still not petting him. It's going to take time but I think you can do it!

Actually clicker training is really good for shy or reserved dogs because it's totally hands-off, I bet if you give it a shot, it will be fun! Jackson was pretty shy with strange people but in the last year, his confidence has gone WAY up! He now willingly goes up to strangers and accepts being pet and seems to enjoy it.... when he is doing his tricks, his confidence is through the roof. He just eats it up! I enjoy trick training so he does a ton of tricks and he loves the attention he gets from people when doing them! So the clicker training really helped his confidence, our agility class also helped a ton. Any kind of training you guys can do with him will help him out a lot. I pretty much always have treats on me when we are out in public so if a person presents themselves to us I can turn into a somewhat training session. If someone wants to pet him, I'd ask them to give him a treat first and then pet him under his chin... so he learned that strangers = not bad!