Can't post on other boards yet but have an issue...

[Sky'sMom]

I can't post on the other boards yet, so I'm posting here...
Most of you know about Sky from BabyReba... she is the sweetest thing ever and she loves people... she just wags her tail everytime she sees someone, even if they are far, far away (so far that I can hardly see them). We had a couple incidents in the past couple of days... Sunday I walked her to the starbucks near my house and a group of people passed, a lady had a baby in on of those snuggly things... Sky just started barking like crazy, hair up on her back and neck and everything!! I just tried to make her sit as they walked by because there wasn't anywhere else we could go... she was fine after they kept going. WELL, she did it again last night, the lady had an umbrella up and Sky went crazy... so I just blamed it on the umbrella and decided I would introduce her to the umbrella myself. OK, so this morning... 3 construction workers dressed in those carnhart jumpsuits and holding coolers walked by and she went insane again! I'm not sure what to do about this, this just started happening the past couple of days!? I am going to take her to obedience training soon, will this help??

[BabyReba]

Yikes.

Sounds like a fear thing to me, which I haven't encountered with her in the past. I don't know if maybe she's reaching a stage in which unfamiliar things freak her out, but that is a possibility. Is she still the same lovey-dovey way with everyone she meets? If so, I'm going to guess that she's reacting out of some kind of fearfulness. I know she had a couple of freakouts with big trash cans when I first had her, and we worked on that a bit, and she finally realized that the trash cans were not evil . . .

I would say that a sound round of good obedience training will assist in keeping her in control and looking to you for direction when she sees something weird or scary. It won't solve fearfulness on its own, but it'll put you in control and in the driver's seat so that she doesn't feel like she's the one who should be making decisions about what is "good" and what is "bad" and what is scary and what is not.

My advice would be to start working with her in obedience as soon as possible and start working with desensitization to scary things (like we talked about a while ago with the vacuum) as soon as you can.

I hope someone else here chimes in soon with more advice.

[Sky'sMom]

Yes, she still has the lovey dovey thing going on with people... oh and she saw a Clydesdale for the first time over the weekend, didn't like that too much ;-)! Oh, and the vacuum cleaner thing... I tried to put it in the living room and she just kept attacking it... my vet friend said that it looks like she is threatened by it, she thinks its going to hurt me or her so I probably should just put her in another room while I vacuum... and if she barks to keep talking to her through the door "Sky, I'm Ok... etc"... :-)

[Maryellen]

vaccuum cleaners are the worst because of the noise they make.. my last foster would run and hide when i got the vaccuum out.. sounds like Skye is just having some fear of things issues.. rufus went thru that stage too.. i worked with him with an unopened umbrella on the floor, let him explore it , kept praising, then after acouple of days i partially opened it, same thing, praise, etc, then opened it fully and did it all over again.. backpacks on people make them look funny, so do people carrying coolers, etc..group obedience training will help, and if you work with her around the home and outside that would help too, like have hubby or some friend put a unopened umbrella on the ground outside, and maybe a lunchbox in a different area, and let her explore them naturally, any positive response she does praise to high heaven... any negative do not reward, just move on and make her sit or something, it will be worked out she is still young, and some things are fearful looking to a dog..

[Maryellen]

do NOT tell her its ok when she is barking at anything, that will reinforce her behavior as she will think you are saying its ok to be this way.. i ignore the object and refrain from using the word ok.. dogs seem to think that is a good word.. if rufus growls at something i give him a leash correction and say no growl.. then i see if he wants to walk to the object, if so, good. we walk over and i let him sniff it. if he does nothing and looks at me, i say good boy.. if he growls i say no growl and leash correction and walk away.