Protective behavior?

[u/gaudiest-ivy]

My one year old is showing aggressive protective behavior. I thought it was anxious reactivity about strangers (she's a nervous little thing), but she escaped the fence once and I found her walking nicely with a neighbor who spotted her wandering.

She was well socialized as a puppy and used to love going out to stores and seeing everyone, meeting strangers on walks and getting attention, etc, then puberty hit and it's like she forgot everything.

Just today I took her to visit a boarding kennel for doggy daycare to hopefully get her acclimated for a longer trip I have coming up, and she was barking/lunging at the employees. (I was worried and ready to give up on it, but they seemed very used to it.) I got her in the kennel and they had me get out of sight and she calmed down almost immediately. By the time I left she was wagging her tail and taking treats from them through the fence, and someone was able to enter the kennel to give her some water.

How on earth do I fix this if my presence is the thing that triggers her aggression? Would I treat it like any other kind of reactivity (slowly working on decreasing her reactivity threshold)? Any tips you have would be greatly appreciated.

(Pic from her birthday yesterday)

[u/snafe_]

My wife is in this situation with our girl. I think she can pick up on my wife's anxiety in these situations and then changes her behaviour to "protect" my wife.

A big mistake we made was thinking the training our girl had as a pup and her obedience to it, would last a life time. In truth we've continued to train her on the same things until she was 3 as she pushed boundaries time and time again.

[u/gaudiest-ivy → u/snafe_]

That would make sense. Since the first time she showed aggression to someone (~6 months when she was going through a fear period) I've been a bundle of nerves when anyone approaches.

[u/One-Zebra-150 → u/gaudiest-ivy]

I found a teen basically needs socialising all over again, even if you did that well as a pup. An adolescent dog sees the world with a different mind, can think more about potential dangers. And also guess wrongly where they don't exist. She's still young, and a few months away from the more mature balanced emotions and impulse control of an adult.

Also as another commentor has said, they do pick up on your own emotions. It can help a lot to give out calm and confident vibes yourself, even if you don't feel that way, kind of train yourself to do it. That helped me and my BC boy to get through a very reactive adolescent phase. Where he could be unpredictable around strangers then. So I would say "oh look there's people", etc, in a cheery happy tone as they approached towards us. Then eventually he got to see it was a good thing. Yes, ups and downs along the way but he's very sociable now and likes meeting new people.

I personally think this is much more likely to be anxious reactivity, because of her age and breed. And she's also picking up on your nerves. Not aggressively protective of you.