Test 1: Teaching Your dog to accept a stranger

Test 1: Accepting a friendly stranger

The Test

This test demonstrates that the dog will allow a friendly stranger to approach it and speak to the handler in a natural, everyday situation. The evaluator walks up to the dog and handler and greets the handler in a friendly manner, ignoring the dog. The evaluator and handler shake hands and exchange pleasantries. The dog must show no sign of resentment or shyness, and must not break position or try to go to the evaluator.

Yout Dog must Remain Calm
Ideally you want your dog to remain in complete control and not get excited when you meet a stranger or friend. If you you command your dog to sit during the greeting, he must remain sitting in place until released. If he is standing, he should remain standing until you give a command to sit or release him. The most likely problem you will have with your dog is over excitement. You must train your dog to remain calm no matter who approaches or what the situation. It is perfectly fine for your dog to get excited and to be happy when receiving attention, but only after you allow it to do so by giving a release command.

Agression Problems
Some dogs can get agressive due to fear, protetion or dominance agression. Growling, snarling, biting, or barking are some of the signs of agression. If you dog shows any signs of agression you should hire a professional dog trainer or dog behavioralist to aleviate this problem as soon as possible.

Fear Problems
Your dog may show signs of fear such as withdrawal and or its tail tucked between its legs. With extreme cases of fear the dog can become agressive as a method of protecting itself from the fear. It is not normal that a dog would be fearful of people and this most likely is the result of prior abuse or trama from a human. If you dog shows any signs of fear you should hire a professional dog trainer or dog behavioralist to help rehabilatite your dog.

Your Dog is Jumping up on People
Under no circumstances should your dog be allowed to jump on anyone with the exception of owners who wish to allow jumping up on thier handler after giving a command to do so. We do not recommend training a dog to jump up on the handler on command due to the fact that dogs show dominance by jumping on other dogs and when a dog is stressed it can start to jump up on the trainer as an act of avoidance.

How to Meet many people
One way to desensitize and train your dog to remain calm when meeting strangers is to go to your local grocery store and give out the weekly sales flyer for the store. After doing this for 30 minutes, your dog will experience the meeting of many people and the grocery store will appreciate having a free marketing representative. Try to do this in several different locations in as many different scenarious as possible. If your dog shows any signs of agression, do not do this with complete strangers.

How the Command Sit Helps
If you issue the command to sit during a greeting, your dog will find it much easier to remain calm because giving the sit command gives your dog something to do. If your dog remains standing it can be tempting to break from the standing position and go towards the other person.