easy to scare dog

Question
Hello,
I have a big German shepherd dog (male, almost 2 years old) he's an outside dog.  He get's scared or nervous easily. I can tell by him lowering his ears, looking down, and lowering his head and body to show obedience whenever a slightly scary situation is presented.  For example, my neighbors' kid tried to scare him from behind the fence and thru the cracks yesterday, my dog backed up, lowered the ears, and looked for me for help.  I've seen other dogs standing in their ground and barking like crazy when confronted with the same situation.  Please help me on this behavior as I'm sort of ashamed of it.  he is a big dog (90lbs) and has the aggressive look, I'm also afraid he'll run away when it's time to do the protection duty if ever needed.

Answer
Your dog isn't looking to you for help, he's looking to you for guidance.

Dogs that bark at every little thing and keep on barking are bored dogs. Dogs that are afraid of every thing are also unhealthy, they have not been properly socialized and therefore do not know the appropriate way to react to unusual situations. Don't assume that obvious aggression is a lack of fear either. Many dogs display their fear as aggression. And some dogs just bark for fun. You are lucky that your dog looks to you for guidance instead of just going nuts when he's scared.

A dog who is closely bound to his owners and his territory *will* protect without training. Good protection dogs don't run around barking at every little thing but only focus on those things that are really threatening. If your dog is bonded to you and sees you as his pack leader and someone threatens you, your dog will attack that person out of fear. He is fearing that that person is going to take his leader away and he will be alone in the world. Fear can be healthy. You would protect your child from the same person out of fear that that person would take your child away. But you don't attack everybody that looks at your child. That would be crazy.

If your dog is acting nervous it is because he doesn't have enough experience in the world to know what is okay and what is not. If he is looking to you for guidance it is because you have not clearly communicated to him how you want him to react in certain situations. This is what I would do.

First follow the guidelines in this article to establish pack leadership: http://www.thegooddogjournal.com/2009/02/whos-boss-establishing-pack-leadership....
Second, bring your dog in the house, at least at night. You may need this article on housebreaking: http://www.thegooddogjournal.com/2008/11/housebreaking-made-easy.html
You want the dog to protect your house, right? Why on Earth would he protect a house he doesn't live in? It's just not logical.

Now, take your dog to lots of interesting places and introduce him to lots of interesting people. Have your friends come over and pet him, give him treats and teach him some tricks. This will teach him how people act when they are not threatening so he can recognize people who are.
Finally, teach him what you want him to bark at. If there is something that does make him bark (like a knock on the door for example) use that to make him bark, then tell him "Speak" or "Bark" or in my house we say "Woof!" and then give him a treat. Repeat until he barks on command. (Then you also want to teach him "That's enough" so he shuts up.)
Next, whenever something happens that you want your dog to bark at, give him the command, when he barks tell him he's good and then say "That's enough" so he stops.

For example, I wanted my dog to bark when someone pulled into my driveway, which is quite long and the parking area isn't in view of any window, so I wanted a warning before people magically showed up on my doorstep. So I had people call me just before they got to my house and watched for them to pull in and then, very excitedly I rushed to my dog and said "Oh my Goodness! Griffin! Woof!" and he'd get all excited and start barking. Then when the car is parked I say "That's enough" and we rush to the door to greet the newcomer, so he's rewarded by getting to see a new person. Now he always warns me when someone is coming to the house and rushes to the door expectantly, though now we have taught him that he must rush to his rug because rushing to the door didn't work out.