HELP...fear/reactive to strangers???

Hi all,
gosh, I havent been on in ages... real life sort of overtook me LOL
Anyway...I am back in need of all your expert advice!
Bella is our 17 month old rescue dog. She is a cross, not totally sure what of but has some staffie and some collie in there...
We have had her since she was 6 months old, and her previous owner rehomed her from the pound at 6 weeks old.
Her previous owner seemed nice enough, but we have since found out a lot of what she told us about Bella didnt add up, so imagine she hasnt had the best start in life.
Now Bella has come on wonderfully since we got her. She now has fairly reliable recall, ususally even quite good in the face of distractions . Follows commands well. Is generally a great fun and loving dog.Loves all other dogs, and plays well with them.
But over the past 2-3 months she has seemed to develop a real problem with strangers.
This manifests itself in a few different situations, and is getting me really worried.
Firtsly she hates if a stranger comes up to stoke her when she's on the lead.She will growl and snarl, and has even snapped (air snap not nip) a couple of times. I now always ask people not to approach her if they look like they're going to...but would really rather help her to feel more comfortable with this.
Off lead she is fine. She will usually ignore other people. A couple of other dog walkers we sort of know she will happily run up to to be stroked...but when someone approaches her on -lead she is terrible.
I used to sometimes bring her up to school to collect the children , but cant anymore because ALL the children seem to insist on trying to hug and stroke her and I cant put her in that situation knowing how she might react.
The other situation it causes problems is when we have strangers in the house. For example when the children have friends round visiting she will start barking and growling at them, which is obviously not on, so I have to make sure she is kept away, which I think is actually making the situation worse as she cant get used to them...
She is really used to children..we have 6 LOL and she has never shown any aggression to them...but visiting children really stress her out it seems.
When out and about she is totally not bothered by other children around eg in the park, as long as they dont approach her when she's on lead.
Obviously I can manage situations and I am currently ensuring she is kept out of potentially stressful situations...but what I need is a way to overcome this...
Please help, because this is really stressing me out.

I share your pain. Daisy will not tolerate being touched by strangers. She seems happy enough off lead, and doesn`t mind playing with people, just keeping her distance from those she`s not happy with. Which is fine with me.
So I don`t let people stroke her. Simple as that. Some people get the hump about it but wtf, it`s my dog. And I reckon she`s entitled to her space if that`s what makes her happy.
With occasional visitors and deliveries she is shut away. For friends and relatives I can trust to let her come to them, she is introduced slowly, and visitors asked to ignore her. If visitors can`t be trusted, she`s kept on a lead.
I know it`s a bit of a faff, but Daisy is gradually becoming more and more tolerant. So why not give your girl her space till she feels more confident?

And why should she???

Todays Society dictate that all dogs must accept all things that are done to them without ever showing their feelings - but sadly, society failed to tell dogs that!

I wouldn't want a stranger touching me (unless it was hugh Jackman), you woudln't want a stranger touching you ( I guess?), so why should our dogs?

it is my firm belief that all dogs should be protected by their owners from the advancement of oncoming "friendly" strangers. A direct approach, with eye contact, and an outstretched hand, can be a highly intimidating experience for any dog, especially when they are confined to a lead!

There are strict rules in the dog to dog world about how to invite or reject physical contact, with good socialisation dogs learn this quite easily.... but most humans never do!

I always advise people to totally ignore other dogs and never be tempted to stroke one unless it is actively soliciting for attention.

If you have a dog which does not like being touched by strangers, as I did for 18.5 years, then I believe that it is your responsibility to protect that dog from strnagers advances.

Some people simply do not understand that not all dogs like strangers..... They say things like "oh I love dogs, they love me" and they approach with serious intent to stroke. This can be even more intimidating for a dog. With my old girl who hated such things, I learnt over time that the best way to get people to leave her alone was to say "Don't touch her - she has mange!". And they backed off sharpish.

thanks both. And yes I see your point. It does really annoy me how people will just rush up to her and try and stroke her, especially kids...ggrrr
The other night we had taken her for a walk along the beach (we're in Ireland at the mo!) and then stopped at a pub and were sitting outside for a quick drink. She was on-lead and sat down at my feet whilst dh was getting the drinks. A lady on another table started chatting to me. Now she clearly had some mental health issues, and had maybe had one drink too many, but she was pleasent enough. But then she suddenly approached us and bent over Bella and started stroking her. Bella bared her teeth and I quickly moved Bella behind my legs, and said about her getting scared when approached by strangers, and the woman just said "but she's smiling" and tried to stroke her again telling me it was Ok cause she had a dog....grrr...
Anyway I kept Bella out of the way(she was doing her low "I am NOT happy" growl by this point), and asked the lady again not to so she left us alone...but it is annoying....
Now really in my opinion that is quite a reasonable reaction on Bella's part....
BUT it is hard in a park or similar if I go with Bella and the children, to ensure that she isnt ever approached. Children seem to rush up to her all the time, and sometimes despite my best efforts they reach out and stroke her before I can ask them not to. And whilst you could argue it would be the child's fault if she snapped in that situation, obviously I wouldnt want that to happen. I could just never take her to parks etc...and we are lucky where we live as we have a wide choice of places to walk her where we hardly ever meet people (woods,lake etc) BUT we do go for lots of days out as a family walking or picnics in country parks etc and always bring Bella, and wouldn't want to leave her behind, as she has so much fun, but I am begining to find I am constantly on egg shells in those situations watching for the approach of mad strangers and kids especially....
Also it would be good if she could stop scaring my kids friends to death everytime they visit LOL
She really is such a loving, fun, affectionate dog, but sometimes she must come across as a really aggressive crazed loony!

Keep the lead very loose and give tonnes of praise when she's around people. Whenever she looks at someone praise/click (if she's clicker trained) and treat.
As you walk past people use rapid fire praise/clicks and as many treats as she can eat.
This will build her associations up to a point.

In the house put her behind a stair gate so she can see but not interact with the kids, do the smae thing (praise and treat) whenever she shows positive interest.
If you have useful kids visiting get them to give her commands and treats (thrown) from a distance to help build her confidence.

Adam

i wouldnt advise someone with a reactive dog to click and treat the dog for looking at the person..unless i have seen the 'look' the dog is giving

Iuse to allow certain strangers to stroke my GSD, however on one occation a young boy around 10/12 years old asked to stroke her and i said yes. She waited nicely for him to stroke ehr and as he put his ahnd out to do so. He pulled his hand away quickly and started screaming and tehn ran away.
Several different people were around and they looked at us as if she had tried to attack him. Even though she just sat nicely beside me and didn't react.

since the above i don't allow stramgers to touch my dog. Although they are some you girls who are about 3-6 years of age who asked to pet he ron several different occations. Usually when they asked i said no as Zara hadn't had her walk yet and she was rather exited or it was when we had just came back from our walk and she was a mud monster. lol
anyway in the end i said yes as they had always listened to me before.... Zara loved the attention.

Zara use to be rather reactive and i didn't relise until i moved into a flat where people would walk passed really close etc.... In those circumstances i made sure i had something so much more exiting with me. Either tasty treats, her fav ball.... to distract her and it worked a treat. I always made sure it was a possitive experience.

Their have also been a few people that she really didn't like at all, one being a builder that was in the house. But i exepted her judgement.

To clarify, looks/glances in a relaxed way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuV3MOvvyr4

Using dogs, but similar princple.

Adam

Have you ever lived with such a dog Adam? Very odd advice in my view.

I think Adam is trying to suggest that the click ends the behaviour - it is a technique, that can work well under very controlled and well understood, conditions.

but personally, if I where to give out that advice about that technique, I would give a lot more guidelines than that. That particular training technique is pretty complex and not something to be taken lightly. Especially with people reactive dogs.

What if the dog is growling at the time Adam? Still Ok to click then?