Thanks very much for your replies.

Excatly when it first startet I don´t remember, but I know the first time I remember notice it, was when I brought Ally to work.

The first 2-3 months of her time with me, I brought her to work as I didn´t want to leave a little puppy home alone for a holde day.
And she has always loved comming with me to work.
All the employers loves her and even the postman brought her treats as she was so cute. Then came a period of her being left more and more at home as she was trained to, and I only brought her to work if I knew I was in for a long day.

One day at work she acted scared of the postman! Barked at him and ran away from him. She was scared to run down in the yard by herself to say hi to the employers etc.

I laughed at it and sat down and made her say hi to the postman and went down with her and that was then end of it I thought.

But now she has increased it to being scared at home too.
Scared of visitors, the neighbour, the sounds in nature (??), just about everything

Besides the fact I think it must be terrible for her I´m very annoyed by it.
I have the holde time demanded that regardless of her fear, we must continue what our plans were; training, playing etc.

I hope it will disapear as we start training again in january and
hope its a homonally thing as you say.

I think it has been going on continuous, just getting worse and worse and I´m pretty sure that my reaction hasn´t helped as I have been more and more worried along the way.

As mentioned before, training starts january 9 and if that doesn´t help I seriosly consider calling my vet who is also an specialist on dog behaviour (hope it doesn´t come to that).

Thanks very much for all the help and thumbs up that 2005 will make Ally grow up

Oh poor ickle Ally

I know that's not for her to hear, so hold her ears while reading this

No seriously I hope she'll get better soon

.. Amts look at the bits I have highlighted......

... could it be you took Ally to work/she liked and trusted the postman/you left her at home and while you were not there she was scared by a postman or man in uniform and she had her trust shaken? It may well be SBs conclusion is the correct one, but a frightening experience could have a bad effect to. A couple of years ago Amy (who goes to work and sits in my office alone at times) developed a fear of box files, the type with a spring that makes a snapping noise. I use them at home and got one out and she was scared and rushed out of the dog door I could only assume someone at work scared her with one or with something that made a similar noise. I totally ignored the behaviour , I also left them around the house with treats on top and the treats disappeared She got over it

OK, I'm a bit confused now. I had assumed that this period of flakey behaviour started only a few weeks ago and, therefore, fitted nicely into the second fear imprint syndrome. If the fear of known and unkown persons/situations has been continuously ongoing from puppyhood to the present then that is a different matter.

Can you clarify amts? Has she just started, over the past weeks, acting scared of familiar things or has she always demonstrated fear of both the known & unknown and it has started to escalate?

Minihaha: She can´t have gotten the fear of the postman from home, cause our mailbox at home are up the road and she hardly ever sees the car or the postman at home. Just the paperboy who she still loves (although it does seem the bee the other way around )

SB: She hasn´t always been afraid of people, noices, etc. Infact just the opposite. She used to run to everything/everybody with full speed and have always seemed kind of fearless.

But then, weeks ago, she started acting scared of things. Things she knew and never had problems with before. This seems to have developed into a fear of everything and happens everywhere.
For no reason I can think of.

However, I think we might have seen some progress the last couple of days. She has, all by herself, visited the neighbour (which she is not allowed to ), and we have been training fears of fireworks with succes as she (new years eve) wasn´t as scared as we were afraid off.

Besides that she has (today I might add) been with my oh to visit a friend and didn´t acted scared at all, of either the many noises there always are at the place, nor the many other visitors at the place.
My oh has ignored her and everybody has been told to do the same.

My own idea is that she might have had started the "second fear imprint syndrome" and my (our) reaction has making it worse/longer

Yah that's what it souds like to me too...

Hope she'll get better soon..

buds has moments when he stares in to space in a kind of trance and then his hackles go up and he starts barking at nothing!lol

Awww ickle Buds

Thanks J

Lol Candie