My Nervous German Shepherd

Question
Hello, Im sending this email in regards to my 8 months old's nervousness around
people. I socialized him quite a lot when he was younger.In fact, I tried doing
it everyday, whether it was with people, noises, or other dogs. At about 5months
of age, he began to show signs of being scared around strangers. He hasnt had
any bad experiences with people, nor dogs. However what has left me wondering,
is the fact that he is ok with some strangers. There is this bar near my house
which has a patio(since its summer there are many customers) and whenever we
past by it, he pulls on the leash hard or gets off the sidewalk. Along with the car there is another store with a patio in which he behaves the same way. Ive notcied that he doesnt like random noises like when we are passing by a construction site. Sometimes he
behaves fine around people and other times he's just not himself. He doesnt show
any signs of aggression towards them, no snarling nor lunging, only barking. He
is a well tempered dog.
I dont understand why he is scared for no reason. Can this be fixed with? I
cetainly dont like the idea of a scared German Shepherd. Thank You.


Answer
It may be difficult to fix.  How young was he when you started socializing him? It sounds like you did what you needed to do.  It isn't uncommon for a dog to go through some fear stages as it matures.  However, at 8 months, he should be coming out of it.  Did you check his blood lines before buying him?  Some lines are much more likely to have problems with fear of strangers than others.  

Can you see anything in common with the people he seems to fear, loud, shrill, or something?  One thing to do is to have strangers, at least to him, give him treats.  This can be very powerful.  Still, at best, you may only be able to reduce the problem, rather than fix it.  

This weekend I am keeping a 2 year old Lab with much the same problem.  He was carefully bred by a dog guide school, and socialized starting at 7 weeks.  At that age, he spent some time with me which should have kept him from bonding excessively with the people raising him.  At about the age of your dog, he was placed in another home attempting to help the problem.  That home was closer to the school where the professionals could supervise his care.  He was also neutered. At a year old, he still had too much of a problem to risk training him as a dog guide.  The training is extremely expensive and the standards are very high.  They will not start training with a dog with any behavior or physical problems.  He was returned to his original home as a pet.  So far, he is working out OK.  You may have to settle for controlling the problem.  You have neutered him?