Any advice for getting through a puppy fear period?
My poor beautiful boy is really going through it at the moment. He's just shy of 5 months and puberty is hitting him like a truck - he's lost two of his puppy teeth in a week, his adult coat is coming through in patches and now he's suddenly becoming terrified of people with seemingly no rhyme or reason.
Strangers (even strangers we walked past 30 minutes ago with no issue), family members that he'd spent the last 4-5 hours around on a visit and yesterday even my partner who's been there since day 1 and takes him out on walks and plays with him every day! It's not constant either; when my partner tentatively came downstairs to go to work this morning it was all smiles and waggy tails like nothing had happened.
I understand this is a pretty normal stage in a dog's development so we've just got to try and endure it until it passes. I've tried leash corrections and moving away, getting him to focus on me and rewarding him when he does, as well as inching closer and getting the scary person to throw treats at a distance when that's feasible. I know teaching him sit/ down would be extremely helpful and we're prioritising that.
I've also booked a 1-2-1 training appointment for the end of this week so hopefully a professional can help us figure things out but I'm hoping to hear from any fellow puppy owners. How did you cope with fear periods? Any tips?
Edit to specify: he's a belgian shepherd. We've had him for just over 5 weeks now.
Thank you so much everyone for your comments so far! The big theme is tiredness so I'm starting to get a plan of action together for dealing with this today:
- light physical activity, training and brain games in the morning/ afternoon
- main physical activity after work to get him good and tired
- keep an eye on his energy levels and try to create some structured naptimes
Also:
- carefully consider puppy classes
- if we have to go visiting, take familiar bedding
- rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat
We'll go to the park again straight after work as we always have in the spirit of consistency and hopefully get good and weary before my partner gets back tonight.
Training, exposure, training, exposure, repeat forever. Our 5 year old black lab had some intense fear periods that totally went away with us just being on top of things.
It sucks because it really sounds dumb, but this is the answer. Consistency and repetition are the most important things one can do for their dog.
To add, I also think it's great that OP has booked a training appointment, if maybe even a bit overboard for right now. A trainer can really help with little things and with tips and tricks. And sometimes it's nice to have a professional tell you what to do. Additionally, I would look into puppy training classes. The group environment is really beneficial to puppies and to driving home a lot of training, especially in more chaotic environments. If you can find one that is accredited the right way, you can sometimes even get insurance discounts for completing a certain series of training classes.
I cannot overstate the importance of these two posts for a happy, healthy pupper who will remain happy and healthy as they become doggos. The frustrating thing about dog training is that almost all of it is common sense, but you don't think of it until you're told. We've been dog owners for about 20 years now, still go training, and still have "oh yeah, shit that's obvious" moments.
Training, especially structured group training is brilliant for dogs. It's an area for them to socialise in a controlled manner, whilst doing what they like to do - use their brains, and they get rewarded for it. They will be exposed to all kinds of different dogs and people, tasks and activities, and they'll come back exhausted and ready for a nap...
Our current pup struggles with anxiety, and one of the recommendations we got was to ensure we gave his brain time to reset after something major - again, common sense, but goes against the general advice of exposure, exposure, exposure... We found if something unexpected happened when out on a walk, he would be much happier having a couple of days to recover before going out again.
The point made was - if his anxiety shoots his brain into overdrive, it'll take some time to come down again. If he's generally at 5/10, something happens that takes him to 11/10, but we take him out again that evening and he's already at 9/10 then anything could tip him over the edge.
Also learn to embrace your inner asshole. if you're out on a walk and another walker comes your way, it's fine to say:
We try to avoid common "dog socialisation" locations like parks, and we go out at odd times of the day so that we have more space to allow him to manage his fears - and he's doing brilliantly, thanks for asking :P
Well I am not sure how helpful this may be but I recently have been going through a similar issue with my own puppy. I’m a couple months ahead of you (she is about 7.5 months) and a large breed mix (Pyrenees, Lab, Rottweiler, Shepherd, Boxer, and “undetermined”). To give some context and background to her behavioral situation I want to mention that she did go through a resource guarding phase that was corrected with time, giving her space when eating, treats thrown from a distance, gradual normalization of people being around, and removal of super high value chews.
The resource guarding transitioned into a kind of fear/startle based location guarding aggression if she was tired and wanting to sleep. This happened around 4-5 months old and has only really noticeably improved in the past month or so. The biggest things we did were to try really identify the source of the behavior which we eventually realized was down to being overtired and overstimulated, and from there we could notice her triggers ahead of time and instituted forced naps. We would also use treats to pull her out of her negative mind space and redirect into training or positive time.
I don’t know how your puppy’s fear is manifesting, if it’s just cowering or lashing out (like ours was). But at the end of the day most fear is fear. A big thing we had to keep reminding ourselves was that despite her size, she was still very much a puppy and would get overwhelmed and overtired and after a certain point she just didn’t have the maturity to deal with her feelings and would get freaked out. Treating her more like a baby and making her take naps and doing calm reassurance while letting her establish boundaries worked really well.
Big dogs get big growth spurts and it’s uncomfortable and turbulent. Your puppy will likely grow out of the fear and right now just needs support to reinforce the good behaviors and discourage bad behaviors.
Thank you for this! Always helpful to know that someone else is in the same boat. Your dog sounds like an amazing mixture, mine is definitely the same in terms of lashing out; it's disheartening because he already has a big voice and it can sound pretty intimidating.
I definitely wondered if he was overtired when he did it on the family visit we had last weekend, that was asking a lot of him. He struggles with car journeys and had to get through a 1 hour trip both ways, then spent 4-5 hours with unfamiliar people and a new dog in an unfamiliar space. He was absolutely comatose on the way home and slept with his head in my lap for the whole ride.
Yesterday when he started barking at my partner it was a while after a big play session in the park, eventually we put him in a timeout in his crate a few times and noticed that he doesn't bark or growl in that, so hopefully that's a place that he feels safe and we can use it to our advantage. He doesn't go in there unprompted unless it's really close to bedtime but he'll happily go in at any time of day if he's told. There have been a couple of times when we wouldn't logically think he's tired but I'll keep an eye on it, that could be more of a connection than we realised.
I hope we can catch you up in terms of having a better handle on this :) we'll stick to the baby basics and try and encourage/ enforce some more clearly defined calm periods/ naptimes.
This took us a long time to recognize when our dog was a puppy. Puppies need a lot of rest and mental stimulation (learning a new trick, being somewhere new, etc) really can take it out of them. Once we found the activity/stimulation levels that worked for our puppy, things got so much better, hopefully it's the same for you.
Yeah it sounds like it could very well be a combo of overtired or overstimulated. We found with ours that if she started getting “growly” if we sent her for a nap in the crate where it was quiet that she would wake up without any traces of her bad mood. Based on all the conversations with our vet and trainer plus the stupid amount of reading I have done on the topic while stressed that my dog is actually Cujo, it seems like just something that requires dedicated work and time.
Can’t wait to hear the updates as he grows up into a good boy.
Are those the results of a DNA test? Those can be shockingly inaccurate with dogs. Like there's an article floating around where they even sent in a human's DNA and 2/4 companies returned what dog breed he is.
Yeah they are the results of an Embark panel and while I am taking a good amount of it with a grain of salt it does seem fairly accurate on the big ones. She got about 28% pyr, 25% lab, 25% unrecognized, and the other 3 were about equal in the remaining percent. We did one at the same time on our other rescue mix who previously had a Royal Canin test and it came back the same as his original. The Pyr and Lab are very evident in her phenotype, but she also looks VERY mixed, like a typically yellow street dog.
I mean, once you are at six breeds, does it particularly matter if it's accurate?
I do think that most of the dog DNA companies are scams though and it doesn't surprise me that they would return dog breeds for a human.
First off, great looking pupper! Second you have to remember that shephard breeds in general are highly intelligent and fast learners. Yours looks like a direct decendent of a wolf which only enhances this. My thinking here is he is just evolving mentally to become more skeptical of people now that the puppy brain is diminshing. Fear not because these dogs are a very good at judging humans and their intentions and adapt rapidly through proper training. Which you are doing so kudos.
He will benefit from extra playtime/exercise while maturing to tire him out and calm the nerves. Puberty is a stuggle for everyone. (This high energy level will technically last a couple of years though be warned) But I've found a great way to work on emotional confidence is to give them more and more complicated tasks. This is sort of a mental distraction as it puts them in "working mode" and honestly these breeds really need to be challenged daily or they get themselves in trouble / depressed. They are were bred to do hardwork and complicated tasks. With my shephards once the basic commands were learned we would start giving rewards only when multiple commands were obeyed in rapid succession, varying each command and sometimes repeating the same ones back-to-back. It builds patience, reinforces the lessons, focuses attention, and actually tires them out faster doing simple mind games then they would get from running in the yard.
I always do a bit of off leash training with my dogs too (starting in controlled environments without other random people around) so they can slowly learn that the world is not something you are allowed to be wandering around in without me present. This includes teaching them not to leave the yard or cross streets without waiting and looking first. It's not easy to teach but can be done and helps the risk getting hit by a car or running away when frightened instead of running home for comfort. Chasing wild animals is the only one I have not been able to kick but with my collie mutt she only scares them off by charging and doesn't take off very far.
A fun thing before bed time I used to do with my previous german shephard, and now do with my rescued feral collie mutt, is take soft treats and break them into at least 4 pieces and hide them all over the room. The dog has to sit still in another room not watching while I hide all these pieces until released with "OK find it". Failure to sit still or peaking while I hide the treats results in a full reset or ends the game. You'll find very quickly the dogs are too good at this and need to come up with more creative hiding spots or hide them in multiple rooms. Your results may vary but this find-it-game great for winding them down to sleep when you want to sleep. I also play it in the backyard. And now "find it" is a command that my dog knows means to search for whatever item I was last holding or search the yard for varmin.
For my rescue, this game was actually a way to get her to go near objects she was oringally afraid of including bags, boxes, doors, and pretty much all man-made objects (because the treats were too tempting to ignore). It also works on new people and family members. They walk through the doorway and give her a treat every single time they see her after a certain amount of time. I repeat this with strangers at the dogpark too. She still is always uncertain of everybody however she is no longer fearful of people. Doesn't like to be touched but now wont bolt away tail tucked all the time.
Sorry this got so long, hope you find it useful. And that others have additional feedback or criticism.
Dog tax: https://imgur.com/a/cWPLHu7
Thank you! Your current dog is a cutie! He's doing a fairly good job of stopping and waiting to cross at the roads, he only needs the occasional reminder now. I'd like to get that to a place where I just stop walking and he sits but that will come with time. When we go out to the park for physical exercise we put him on a long lead and have worked up to letting him run around on his own but with the long lead still attached, just in case a recall fails and then we can put a foot on it to secure him rather than trying to outpace him.
We also did some recall hide n seek last night: my partner and I both had treats and would take turns calling him over. Since his recall is weaker with my partner, he stayed in clear sight while I would run and hide behind a door or a corner in a different room before calling him. Treat hide n seek sounds like a good thing to add in too!
I think what I'm getting from this is that tiredness is a big factor. We'll keep throwing more brain games into the mix and then when he's tired make sure he goes down in his crate for a nap. Of course that won't work when we're visiting someone else, his crate's so big that it's a bit of a faff to load it up and take it with us but realistically we'll probably be limiting our visits to other people while he's going through all this anyway.
My mum and nana are visiting us for a couple of hours this weekend, I'm especially worried because my nana has limited mobility so I'm not sure how he'll react to that. I'll give them some advance warning and make sure they have a steady supply of treats for it but also be prepared to let him have that crate time.
Good idea! He does have a towel in there currently and a big blanket covering the top and sides to cocoon him; we're still working on toilet training and getting through teething before he gets upgraded to a nice blanket to lay on. If we absolutely have to go somewhere with him then we'll try out taking the towel and see how that goes.
Thanks, sounds like you are totally on the right track and the other commenters on here are excellent. Dog behavior really is a function of energy, hunger, and trust. It took my rescue a full month to even let me near her without a chase, and a year to be able to play with her and take her on walks without my partner that she is bonded to. Now as you can see in the photo she is amazing. For this dog the missing key was just to trust her, she was feral and has a lot of Alpha energy. On leash she wants to lead. Off leash she can just relax and be herself, and is an excellent hiking buddy. Learn your puppies strengths/preferred stimulation and use that to further the training. Mine enjoys herding so we do training mostly in outside environments and it sticks better than inside. She really likes hunting small prey so I use that as the reward sometimes. (Playing tug with her squirrel toy, or literally letting her outside and telling her to chase the chipmunks and bunnies out of the yard.) Always get super duper tail wags with these activities.
Also commands like "No" or "Eh!" Are what I use for stopping unwanted behavior or taking food without permission. And these work much better than trying to ask the dog to stop in a sentence. I have hand signals for every command too which works better on shephards in my experience. They try to ignore what you say and pretend they didn't hear it but none of my dogs has ever been ignorant when making eye contact and using the hand commands.
Definitely appreciate the reassurance :) I talk absolute nonsense to him throughout the day but when I actually want him to do something it's very much 1-2 words and trying to throw in signals for commands too.
I have an Aussie Shepherd and it was the same. Everything set him off for a few months. I had to be really careful whenever I took him for a walk, which was made especially worse by the fact that we had a lot of erratic behaving homeless people near our house at the time and I really didn't want him to pick up negative associations with them. What made it even harder was that the mockingbirds in the park I used to walk him in were in their mating or nesting season at the time and this led to them becoming weirdly aggressive towards all dogs. They'd keep trying to dive bomb the lad and it freaked him out.
What IKantSpell posted was good advice, and one of the main threads tying all their advice together is that a well exercised pup is a well behaved pup. If they get enough mental stimulation throughout the day (and enough sleep) their fear responses will be not as strong. You also want to keep reinforcing good behavior in the standard way, by praising and treating them in the split second between when they've noticed a potentially triggering stimulus but before they've had a chance to react to it. The command word I taught was "chill out!" and if he reacts he gets a "nuh uh" and if he holds back he gets treats. What you mentioned about the long car ride isn't surprising. Car rides can be anxiety inducing, and if he's been bathing in stress hormones that whole time he's going to be super amped up and aggressive until he's had a chance to work it off. Games like tug-of-war are very good, safe ways to help them work off aggression.
You do want to be careful to not correct them for barking when they're uncomfortable though. Because that barking is how they communicate, and you really want them to let you know if they're stressed out as they get bigger. Otherwise you might have a dog that doesn't bark or growl to warn people and goes straight to biting. You want to build comfort with the stimulii, not just aversion to reacting.
He eventually came out of it with a healthy respect for birds as well as a weird aversion to any large, formless sacks such as grill or motorcycle covers, tarps, or trash bags. That becomes especially fun around Halloween, as he declares a blood feud against each and every inflatable lawn ornament he sees. Being a shepherd, he's probably always going to have a bit of stranger danger in him. That's just how they're wired. The best I've been able to do is to make sure he's steadily interacting with a lot of different new people all the time and making sure those interactions are positive. In particular I had to make a point of having a Black male friend watch him a few times because I noticed he was weirdly specifically aggressive towards Black men and I needed that to not happen. (I assume it's because of the aforementioned issue with (basically all Black) homeless men behaving aggressively and erratically around him so much.)
That's entirely fair! He's a belgian shepherd, so we do have to be mindful of potential guarding instincts but his temperament up to this point has been excellent.
I would definitely suggest continued training. Belgian Shepherds can punch far above their weight class. One of the sub-breeds (Malinois) is what they brought on the bin Laden raid. They need a lot of activity and can be a big liability.
I was fairly conscious of avoiding having a maligator, there's still plenty of nice ones out there but they've been victim to some irresponsible breeding practices - much more than the other 3 subtypes. Mine is a show line groenendael so a lot more laid back.
I went through this last year with my Pomsky. Unfortunately, puberty is a really confusing time for them! Their brains are developing, and their bodies are changing a lot. Have you booked your pup for puppy classes? I feel like at that age, it might be even better and more useful than personal training, especially to help them socialize.
When I took my pup to puppy class, the first week he spent the whole time running away from the other dogs, he was the only one yelping and crying and trying to run away from them, it was super sad! But then literally a week later he was able to start playing with them and roughhousing just fine! It's such a week to week process, I wouldn't worry about it too hard. Just constant exposure and training and reassurance and it'll blow over just fine.
Thanks! I have been scoping out puppy classes but to be honest since he's more inclined to stand his ground and bark while he's afraid, I was worried that perhaps I shouldn't! A lot of the group sessions around here ask you to discuss reactive dogs prior to joining (as they should) and I was unsure if they'd be a good fit while he's having these outbursts. I'll discuss that a bit more when the trainer comes over too.
If you have the means of taking time out of your day to train at home (even short training sessions), I can't recommend Susan Garrett's training programs enough. The two that I'm working through are Crate Games and Homeschool the Dog. She focuses on positive reinforcement training only, and also has a huge back catalog of podcasts that cover various aspects of puppy ownership.
Good luck with your pup!
EDIT: forgot to add the word "enough"