Growly dog - what works best?

Shamus my new rescue is a gentle creature but a bit of a scaredy-cat. Certain things frighten him and he growls. Big men, blokes standing close behind him, people staring at him...he`ll freeze and growl. There`s never been a sign that he`ll go further but obviously people get upset.
Up to now I just asked people to ignore it, or look away from him. There has been some improvement. Would it be better to ask people to give him a treat, I wonder? What has worked for you?

Ooh now here's one I can give benefit of my experience on!

Takara had loads of socialisation as a pup but I didn't know about forced positive socialisation so a lot of the stuff I intro'd her to actually scared her.

She became quite wary of children (you would if they ran at you screaming each time they saw you) and became really nervous of large dogs.

I socialised her with dogs a lot but around us there just weren't many large breed dogs bigger than labs so if she met a rottie or similar sized dog she'd pee her pants.

She always reacted by removing herself from the situation but the dog would often follow so I decided to try to alter her emotional response to dogs (creating a 'conditioned emotional response').

I did this using clicker training and highly recommend it for anyone with a food motivated dog (can be awkward if the click has to be followed by ball throwing in certain situations!)

So I always suggest:

Start with a low intensity trigger - for instance - a smaller bloke that is stood at a distance from him and not looking. You may wonder why you'd want to reinforce this as he's ok with it, but you do it anyway as it relaxes them a little more.

Taking baby steps, build up his stimulus. Move the 'smaller man' a little closer, still not looking and continue to reinforce his presence.

When you want to up one criterion (ie. get the man to look at him) then make another criterion easier (ie. take a step or two away) etc. etc.

That's a situation to set up.

For situations that arise, I keep an eye out as soon as I see a trigger, I wait for dog to see it and click before the dog gives any response. Click and feed for looking and remaining calm.

If you do get a bloke coming up, I'd ask them not to look at him but to throw a treat on the floor for him. That way he's not having to take it from their hand but the food is coming from them and gradually you can start moving to taking it from their hand - still not looking.

Takara has always been aloof with people and never liked them fussing her. I don't see this as a problem, she never grumbled or barked at people but unfortunately because she is a dalmatian everyone wants to fuss her and feels they should be able to.

So I went through the same thing with you (tbh, it was mostly men, but anyone I could find really) and asked people to feed her.

Be warned - she now pulls (ever so slightly) on her lead to get to people when on walks!

She's far more of a joy to have now that she can cope with these situations and I found the clicker invaluable because it got through to her regardless of her emotional state.

Thank you. I`ll have a go at getting men to throw treats near him first - I think that`s a great idea - no pressure on either bloke or dog!

That does work Ollie was/is the same, we went to a training class for a while and did this people walking past him ignoring him, no eye contact no speaking to him and just throwing a treat at his feet, he will now sit or lay happily while we chat to strangers he is still not comfortable with strangers trying to stroke him and will give a warning growl or bark if they try, so we tend to tell people not to touch him as he is uncomfortable with having his space invaded.
We are still having to work on him with people visiting the house too, we do have Friends but do not have a lot of people coming in or out of our house so this still upsets him also. But I think we will get there eventually.

Yeah it's a good way of doing it - I'm getting people to throw a treat or toy for Takara over the gate at the moment because although fine with people on walks now, she doesn't like them being near the gate.

Lynn that's the main problem I have with Takara and visitors. Not enough people coming in to make it a normal thing for her...

My main trouble is that Shamus, being a GSP , likes people - it must be something in his past that suddenly triggers a panic. Next time it happens I`ll ask the person to throw a toy or treat - I take it the idea is to replace bad associations with good ones?

That's exactly it