Our rescue dog is nervous around new people

Hi there

We recently rescued our collie Max from the Dogs Trust and are getting him settled into his new home.

Max is very shy of new people and had a history of 'nipping' at someone before. He has been fine with me and my boyfriend, we have never felt any aggression from him, but he has 'nipped' at my Dad.

Max is also very nervous of loud noises, signs, lamposts, big cars and anything that moves in a way he didn't imagine they would! He is still very young, only just 1 yr old and has been in kennels most of his life, so we know that it will take time.

He is however, fine with other dogs and with our rabbit Poppy and always wants to play with them and us.

If anyone has any experience or advice about how to introduce Max to other new people, i would be most grateful.

Thanks guys

Hi, congratulations on your new chap!! I hope you have many happy years with him.

Presumably the Dogs Trust have a behaviourist that you are using to help you through all of this?

Other than that the best piece of advice I can offer is that you need to build his trust up again with you, fully and then socialise with other people.

This is going to be baby steps but with time, patience and perseverance , you will get there.

Good luck!

Thank you, he is great dog, we love spending time with him!

The Dogs Trust ran through the basics with us, things like don't introduce him to too many things at once and spot the signs that he is stressed. But to be honest, these are things that we already knew, having had dogs in the past.

It is knowing when we can move on to actually meeting new people that i am unsure about and what is the best way of going about it.

My boyfriends Dad has an older collie too. We thought perhaps taking them both out for a walk together with my boyfriends Dad too, so that Max can feed off the other collie's energy around us??

Gosh, you could be describing our rescue collie Stumpy (except she is female and a bit older!)

I think the important things are:

Take it slow - don't put him in a situation where he feels so scared/uncomfortable/uncertain that he has to defend himself.

Build on your bond with him - he must learn to trust you in order to face 'scarey things' and accept your leadership that they are not scarey. You must remain relaxed and calm around him so that he takes his cue from you.

Don't let anyone 'force' their attention on him. Visitors etc should ignore him - no eye contact, no talking and definitely no moves to pet him or even approach him. Once he is more relaxed, if he wants to approach them, let him, but again, the person mustn't try to stroke/touch/reach out to him. He must be completely comfortable with them before they try to touch him. Even then it will be more a case of the dog touching them than them touching the dog.

Only introduce confident people to him - if someone knows he may nip and is frightened of him, this may well cause him to nip as he will think he has a chance of 'seeing this person off'.



Be gentle but firm with him. Don't be too soft and 'motherly' with him or this will just encourage his fears. But equally don't force him into situations well past his comfort zone.

Keep him on lead anywhere where there are strangers until you are certain of his behaviour. Unfortunately even a nip is classed as a bite and he could be in serious trouble if he nips someone when out in public.

Very best of luck, it is a slow and sometimes frustrating path, but so worth every minute

Excellent advice here!! Good post Hali.

I think socialising him with your Dad's dog will only work if he is comfortable with his surroundings. If he's out and about and strangers are there he will still be nervous. Just a thought but I'd avoid this, unless others know better?

Well fear can be a strange thing. Take Stumpy for example - when she's in a strange place she would rather run from anything scarey than approach it. However, in familar surroundings she has more confidence - enough to think 'why should i run - I'm going to make them leave instead'.

I can't say it will be the same for all dogs, but Stumpy was better being introduced to people with other dogs, so a walk may not be a bad idea - you will just need to watch him and see how he behaves.

The difficult bit with a dog with a history of nipping is managing to stay relaxed yourself, but this is so important.

Yes, I see. I was just worrying about her being around a) a dog she doesn't know (will they be on or off lead) and b) how she would be with FiL as well?

I do agree though that most dogs can feel relaxed and confident around a dog they trust (is FiL's collie good with other dogs?) and in fact tend to behave like a different dog entirely so perhaps it is worth a try.

I think again, small steps is the way forward!

Hali has given you some excellent advice here. I also agree try the walk, an older Collie can be a good idea. We often use Reah our older Collie to walk with friends who have nervous dogs, she is a confident bitch and usually this puts them at ease. As Hali says introduce slowly and just watch him and see how he behaves.

Best wishes