# Barking at Strangers



## MercyMom (Dec 19, 2011)

My Mercy barks at strangers that are far off. She has been doing this since she was 10 weeks old. My personal dog trainer calls it reactionary behavior. Mercy is not doing it to the extent that Abbey is. It's hard to train her to not bark since she does it without warning. I was told to give her treats when stimuli that might result in barking occurs. It's hard for us humans to know what that something is since dogs sometimes hear things that we don't. Mercy is barking like a watch dog in our backyard during potty breaks. I pray that her barking doesn't get as serious as Abbey's, especially since I am training her to be a therapy dog. I am almost wondering if some female goldens have a recessive gene that causes them to bark at strangers more. :scratchch My breeder sold us a pup that she chose for us. She chose the pup with the least amount of energy so she wouldn't be too wild for our 3 year old. The problem with low key pups, is that they might be more sensitive and become more fearful than their more active counterparts. She's still wild with my son though!:yuck: Good luck. Hopefully, we will both find the answers we are looking for.


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## Charliethree (Jul 18, 2010)

Dogs can go through 'fear' periods between 4 -8 months, where they are nervous of known stimuli, something old becomes 'new' again, and they tend to want to run away from it. They can also go through a second fear period between 8 -14 months, as they are reaching maturity, and experiencing hormonal changes. In either case try to create positive outcomes for any situation, if your dog has started barking at random people, reward her for her attention to ALL people, don't try to guess which one might set her off. Regardless of whether she reacts to someone, get her attention on you and give her a high value treat, if she comfortable with it, and you want her to, you can let her meet the stranger, and reward her for doing so. You want to build (or rebuild) that association that strangers mean good things happen.


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