Labrador

Question
Hi I was trying to figure out how I can get my yellow labrador to stop barkingand growling at any strangers he sees. We yell at him to stop or we grab him and he temporarily stops barking but then he starts at it again. Also when the door bell rings he starts barking loud! Until he can sniff and examine the person he stops barking.

Answer
Hi, Ryan,

Thanks for the question.

There are two ways to approach this. One is to focus on the behavior itself, and try to fix it. The other is to look at the underlying cause and fix that.

Here's a way that might help, using the first approach. Take some treats on your walks. When he barks at someone, apologize to them, then try to explain that he gets nervous around strangers. If they seem sympathetic, tell them you're working on making him feel less nervous and would they like to help you out. If they agree, give them a treat, have them show it to your dog, and ask him to sit. When he sits, the give him the treat. If he gets asked to sit, and rewarded for it, by enough strangers he'll stop feeling nervous when he sees people.

The second approach would be to deal with his underlying fear or confidence issues. There are two exercises that will help make him more balanced emotionally. One involves hand-feeding him all his meals outdoors, and the other involves playing tug with him outdoors, always letting him win, and praising him for winning. Both are big confidence builders. Here are a couple of links explaining how to do them and why they work:

http://www.tiny.cc/SwimUpstream
                  
http://www.tiny.cc/tug

I hope this helps,

LCK