Passive Agressive?

[Juistin Denney]

My puppy Winston is 10mo old. I'll start by saying he is the best dog ever with my family! I also have a 10mo old son and they are best friends. My son is able to pull on him, climb on him, slap (his form of petting), pretty much anything. All Winston does is kiss him when he is around, and then follow him around the house.

We adopted Winston 1mo ago from a local here in town and she bought him from a local breeder. The only problem is our dog Winston is very shy of people and we cannot figure out why. When people come around the house he gets very intimidated and growls at them while running from them. After a couple minutes he warms up and starts to come near them and then after a little while he is finally warmed up completely.

With other dogs he just is scared of them. I have been only taking him around my families dogs (to get him used to interaction with other dogs and not worry about getting sued if anything were to ever happen). He just stays away from the dogs I take him around, has growled a couple times if the dogs sniff him to much but has never bit them.

The old owner said she took him to the dog park all the time and that he was great with other dogs and people. I am a little leery of this from what I have been seeing.

Any advice on what to do? I just want our dog to be his happy fun self around other dogs and all people, but scared to really venture out to big events with him or dog parks just in case he gets scared and bites even though he has never shown to do this.

[Cynthia, Elvis & Pink]

It sounds like he hasn't been very well-socialized or been abused.  The place I took Pink to for her training had a remedial puppy kindergarten for older puppies that missed out on puppy kindergarten, which is mostly about socialization.  Maybe you have a similar program near you.  If not, you might want to contact a trainer because you don't want it to get worse and he begins snapping at kids.  I would start giving him an extra special treat whenever he sees a stranger and work up to having the new person give him a treat.  As for fear of other dogs, it's a lot harder but you could try giving him treats when he sees another dog

Your puppy is also in the terrible teen months (9-14 months) where they are at their brattiest :-)