Is your doodle afraid of men in hats/glasses/beards?

[Livia Free]

Misha just turned 1. She LOVES people! But lately, she has become quite afraid of men in either hats, glasses/sunglasses and or beard. Any combination of these will set her off shivering with her tail pulled between her legs? I don't like this behaviour, she is not a guard dog but a companion, but I understand that deep down in her she has some protection gene left. Anyway, have you experienced this with your doodle? If so, how did you help your doodle not be afraid? 

 

Like today, we were walking. We met a guy (with straw hat and sunglasses) and he started asking questions about Misha, so we moved in closer to be able to hear. But as soon as she spotted him, she tried to hide behind me, pulled her tail in and was shivering. I had some treats so I gave the guy a treat and asked him to throw it to her. He did but she turned her head. I didn't want to push her any more so we left.

 

I tried searching the training board but didn't come up with anything.

 

Thank you for yoru help!

 

Livia & Misha

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

Daisy is afraid of Strangers with all of the above, once she knows them she is fine.

I too am afraid of strange men in glasses, hats and beards, I would cut her some slack on this one. How quickly did you move on as I would have stayed a while longer and had more conversation. She still acts shy but I just have her sit stay by me and talk to the person. Eventually she will figure out that if I like him she can too.

[Ginny Nightingale]

Yup--Lyric has this problem too, but it has lessened with time. I remember when she was taking her therapy dog test the evaluator brought her husband in to be the "stranger" that you leave the dog with. He had a beard and a big cowboy hat. I thought "uh-oh, this will never work"--but she surprised me when she did not react to all that stuff at all. But the man was very neutral and didn't try to approach her or pet her, etc. She has really been exposed to a lot more now than she was at 1 year old and the more you can expose her to people in the street, the better. The only problem I have now is with my DH's bearded friend who thinks that growling at my dogs will win them over--he is not having much luck with that.

[Yvonne N]

For ASTRO it is hats or if they have a hoodies sweatshirt with the hoodie part up.  He goes bonkers.

[Becka]

Livia, maybe Misha has been reading too many spy novels and she thinks that all these men are criminals in disguises. :)

 

But seriously, I've heard that you just need to keep exposing your dog to as many different kinds of people as you can (shapes, sizes, outfits, skin tones, with crutches, with glasses, with backpacks, etc, etc) because as is well known, dogs don't generalize very well, so they need to see all the different examples of people to be able to understand the wide variety that comprises what we call humankind.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I remember GBK telling me that when one of her doods reacted to hats, she took to wearing hats sometimes at home to desensitize the dog to hats.  The men at my house wear hats and sunglassses all the time so  my dogs have no problems with them on others, however they may bark or growl at a "stranger" with or without a hat.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I think it may go back to socialization and exposure.  Misha is still very much a puppy and the more you can casually expose her to all kinds of different people the better.  Eventually she'll learn that they did not harm her and there was nothing to be afraid of.  If you can take her to a place where she's likely to see lots of people looking "different" from what she's used to and reward her when she's NOT showing fear, I think that will help.  You may have to be a bit of a distance away from the person and reward even if she just looks without showing fear.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

I think it is one of the fear stages common at this age. Look up the developmental stages of dogs/fear stages of dogs and read about the ages and variations of fear stages.

Get her through this properly.  It really is important down the road. 

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

Webber recently growled at a man in Lowe's that got in line behind us.  He had a bright orange ball cap on, which he took off and handed to me.  I put the hat out to Webber, who sniffed it, and the incident was over.  The last time he freaked over a hat it was a nice elderly man with a flannel fedora that had a feather in it.  Webber barked at him!  That gentleman took his hat off and Webber stopped barking and greeted him.  Just keep taking Misha around men with hats.

[Livia Free]

Thank you so much for your replies! I will look at the developmental stages and go by that :-)

Thanks again!

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

Yes, Chloe doesn't like hats and big bulky jackets she barks her head off or if on a walk she lays low to the ground with her tail tucked under.