Crazy walk- With Tilly St Bernard

Last night my partner took the dogs out after it went dark, We dont usually do this and tilly has never been walked in the dark. She is quite nervous of other dogs (Still) So anyway all was going fine until it satrted raining and a man who had been walking toward my partner started running, needless to say tilly went crazy jumping up i the air and spinning road and barking crazily. Tilly is a St Bernard and weighs about 130lbs at the moment she is a 11months old we have had her since july and are still finding issues which come from lack of socialisation. Do you think this was aggression/protectivness or pure scaredness?? Any advice is mmuch appreciated.

Oh yeah forgot to add we wont be taking her out after dark for a while so we can work on theses issues.

Hannah

Could be that she was frightened, Ollie can be like this, he has been well socialised but has a nervous streak with strangers and if they started running towards him he would react the same way. Ollie can also be protective and I think he sometimes gets confused what his role in life is, if I take the situation away from him he calms down.
Not easy hanging onto and controlling a dog with so much weight behind it.

Yeah this is what i thought she is a nervous dog (not norm with people though) and the fact it was dark and raining probably didnt help the situation. i also dont think jay is as strong a handler as i am and maybe didnt correct quick enough. Thank god for the dogmatic otherwise i dread to think what could of happened.

Sounds like fright to me too - I think many a dog may have reacted to this man running towards them in the dark - in fact possibly during the day as well.

Some simple training with a stooge will probably help if you do want to take her out at night.

If you can perhaps go out with Tilly alone for a bit and start off with some distance - each time she reacts turn away and reward walking towards if she is calm. As soon as she reacts walk in the opposite direction - when she calms reward and turn back towards the stooge? Not sure if this makes sense!

When you have a big dog it is obviously a lot harder to physically control so the need for voice control is ever greater isn't it ! Not sure I could have managed myself! I was going to suggest a head collar but see you have one already as you say bet it was a massive help for your partner Hope he isn't too put off walking her again!