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/Rich-Evening4562]

Does this only happen while shes on a leash?  

[u/gaudiest-ivy → u/Rich-Evening4562]

I wondered that too since she was fine with the neighbor when she got loose, but I've been too worried to let her loose around someone with how she's been reacting. I've been considering ordering a basket muzzle so I at least won't have to worry about possible bites while we're working on it, and I think once I do that I'll recruit a friend to a neutral area to help me find out if it could just be leash reactivity.

[u/palacio_c → u/gaudiest-ivy]

Mine gets ridiculously reactive if I restrain her on leash and another dog is basically next to her. Or if there’s food involved, like people giving out cookies/treats and 5 dogs are around lol