Patrick Murray

Hey all. It seems I've come across an unforeseen issue. My mother-in-law arrived yesterday with her female, French Poodle. And I am embarassed to say that my nearly 6-month old female Czech GSD, Fiona, was initially afraid of this docile, little dog.

I did notice a couple of weeks ago at a local Petsmart that Fiona was fearful of other dogs. This did surprise me because I obtained Fiona at 10-weeks of age and since then she's not had a negative experience with any dog. However, the only dogs she's ever interracted with are my two adult GSD's. She's always been fine with them.

Today I took Fiona again to Petsmart and her hackles went up and her tail went between her legs and she beared her teeth and barked aggressively at other dogs. Afterwards I took her to a dog park and she was better there but still showed a lot of fear and then some fear-aggression. We were probably there an hour and toward the end of the hour she seemed better.

This is all a bit new to me because I never had this issue with my two existing adult dogs, both of whom I acquired at 8-weeks of age.

I plan on taking her there again tomorrow and I also plan on taking her out as often as possible and to expose her to other BALANCED dogs. My guess is that she's insecure around other dogs because she's not had exposure to other dogs.

Could it be something else? Does this type of behavior indicate a character flaw in her that will carry over to protection work?

The only time I ever saw fear with this dog was when we turned on the vacuum cleaner. She was 11 weeks of age and when my wife started to use it she backed away and walked into the other room. At that we left the vacuum on and stationary. Fiona then came over and sniffed it and all was well. That was the only time I've ever seen her act less than confident.

We've had some helacious thunder storms and to her they apparently didn't exist. I've pounded pots so hard that I thought I was going to deaf and she came running over to investigate and even grabbed one of the pots and took off with hit as if it were a toy. I've played with penny jugs tied to ropes that I've thrown and, again, she'd grab the jug and take off with it.

If this fear-of-dogs behavior is a red flag that she is not cut out to be a confident ppd dog then I need to know that NOW.
I'd like to think that it's soley a socialization issue but I don't want to "stick my head in the sand" and candy-coat it if there is a bigger issue here.

What do you think? Thanks in advance.

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Patrick Murray
Amateur Working Dog Enthusiast