Thread: Suspicion

I uaually find that suspicion is something that comes in the early stages with the decoy. The decoy could start by wearing baggy pants, funny boots, long coat and present him self in a very suspicious manner when approaching the dog. Your decoy needs to be a good actor and act like he is up to something but at the same time be seen as very cowardly. If any suspicion is shown by the dog the decoy should run squeel and fall if nessecary, just to make the dog feel he has done well. After a while, the decoy can become less obviously suspicious. Depending on how old your pup is and how confident he is with people, I would recomend that he has very little if any stimulation from people outside his pack eg no cudles, food, treats, ball etc, this way he wont see an approaching stranger as another friend to play with and combined with the decoy work he will learn that some people are nice and some are not but until this is confirmed he must be aware of thier pressence. Just my ideas i hope this helps.


P.S. When I say no stimulation I dont mean no socialisation, he must be socialised well and neutralised to other dogs and passers by.

Originally Posted by craig

I uaually find that suspicion is something that comes in the early stages with the decoy. The decoy could start by wearing baggy pants, funny boots, long coat and present him self in a very suspicious manner when approaching the dog. Your decoy needs to be a good actor and act like he is up to something but at the same time be seen as very cowardly. If any suspicion is shown by the dog the decoy should run squeel and fall if nessecary, just to make the dog feel he has done well. After a while, the decoy can become less obviously suspicious. Depending on how old your pup is and how confident he is with people, I would recomend that he has very little if any stimulation from people outside his pack eg no cudles, food, treats, ball etc, this way he wont see an approaching stranger as another friend to play with and combined with the decoy work he will learn that some people are nice and some are not but until this is confirmed he must be aware of thier pressence. Just my ideas i hope this helps.


P.S. When I say no stimulation I dont mean no socialisation, he must be socialised well and neutralised to other dogs and passers by.

At this stage he is pretty well neutralised to other people, sometimes he'll go for a sniff but from day one I've really been the only one to give him anything, if someone does decide to pat him he usually walks away as their pats, attention and affection have no real value to him - having huge trouble with neutralising to dogs though. He will come away from them with almost 100% reliability but the fact that he wants to go to them is troubling me.

Your post helps, and partially reinforces what I thought the answer would be - all decoy work and not much I can do in the home.

Thanks!.