So, Lucius is a 3 year old Labrador retriever described as "fox red" by his breeder (I think he's more gold than anything). I've had him since a puppy, at the moment we're working on his confidence building. It may be his bad eyesight playing a part but he is a very nervous dog. I'll start from how far he's come so far - this might be a long thread - he showed signs of nervousness at around 4 months when on walks he would bark and growl at people while on walks, sometimes he'd say hello but other times he'd hide behind me and growl. so we started training. To begin with we took him to a dog daycare, he was nervous of the staff and wouldn't come near them. By 8 months he was settled there, and relativity calm when new people came in to the daycare. The barking on the lead persisted. The strange thing was, he didn't do this at the vets or at pet shops. Just on walks. So, I decided to take him to more public places, garden centres, markets, anywhere busy with people. It worked, and he was brilliant after the next few times he visited. Look at him now, sat outside a sweet shop cool as a cucumber, taking it in his stride. I'm glad we persisted with his training, he even allowed a small child to pet him today, (annoyingly the child practically screamed in his face, but he seemed not to care). I'll update more on his confidence building, any tips given will be greatly excepted!
Just an update on Lucius' people skills. We took him on a walk with his baby beagle brother called Pup. We were swarmed by three children aged about 6 or 5 and they asked if they could pet him. lucius was totally calm, no barking , so I said yes. He got petted and scratched behind the ears and his tail was wagging the whole time! Such a good boy! No signs of nervousness, he was completely relaxed!
