I would bet this is a fear period. Look up "fear periods in puppies" - they're 100% normal.

 

Sounds pretty normal, and from your description I'd say you are doing a really good job with him.

 

Thank you! The information on this forum is super helpful, appreciate your feedback!

 

So, a couple of things. First, as others have said - fear period.

Second, sounds like this is your first Doberman? Remember that they are a breed bred to guard, and can be naturally suspicious. You mention people approaching him with hands out, bent over, etc. This is actually not the way people should approach any dog, but especially a dog that might tend toward suspicion or be a bit unsure. I would back it up a bit and actually ask people to ignore him. Don't force interaction, don't put him in situations where he's put into the "conflict" of wanting to accept a treat but maybe not be sure he wants to interact. Let HIM initiate interaction if he chooses (or not). Let rewards come from you...when he's around people, calmly treat. I totally get the "PTSD" from having a reactive dog, but remember that HE is not that dog. Your emotions will go down the leash to him, so do your best to remain calm. If this were my puppy, I would give him a bit more distance and simply let him "watch the world." I'd reinforce that good things happen when people are around by feeding him when we were in social situations...we'd sit at a distance where he's comfortable, and I'd just slowly, intermittently feed him yummy treats as he observed, at a comfortable distance.

On walks, Look at That is a good game to play. Dobermans ARE going to notice things - that's their job. It's your job to reinforce that most things are really no big deal. Different dogs have different thresholds for what agitates them. As an example...my Richter notices things on walks, but nothing really gives him pause. Dogs bark at him, no big deal. People out and about, nope, don't bother him. But we have, very rarely, seen something that is "sketchy", and OH BOY is he on ALERT. Just the other day there was someone out walking in a full ski mask, all in black, walking quickly and purposefully towards us. Now, the guy was not doing anything wrong, but Richter stopped and watched him VERY intently to make sure he was okay before we could proceed with the walk. I let him watch for a bit, told him good boy, we moved on. He looked back a few times to check in on the guy again. I consider that highly appropriate.

Sypha is a bit more alert and more likely to be ...not reactive, at all, but she's just more responsive to her surroundings. Because I have also had a reactive dog in the past, I was very tuned in to how she was as a puppy. We also did a lot of "look at that" when she was young. She's 5 now, and her automatic response when she sees or hears something out on walks is to check in with me (unless it's truly something "sketchy"). If we pass another dog (and they are nearly always straining on the end of the leash)...she turns to look at me. We do a "watch me" and walk nicely past them, or sometimes we sit and wait for them to pass. I always always reward. If dogs bark at her, which she does not like, she looks to me, and I reward her and we keep moving. She checks in with me for pretty much everything, and that's perfectly fine.

In the car, is he crated? I don't personally like my dogs to be barky in the car - we do too many sports and activities where they are in parked cars in their crates a lot. I do a lot of car crate training where I click/treat for seeing people while in the car. You can also give a stuffed Kong to work on while in the car. Classical conditioning.

I know it's tough to have people to your house right now - I think that's something that's going to be hard for a lot of "Covid puppies", especially guarding breeds like Dobermans. If it were me, I would try to have someone over if I could (safely), and I would make sure it was someone who could follow my rules. Ignore the puppy. No petting or interacting unless the pup initiated it. I'd keep it short - 10-15 minutes. I would feed him treats during the visit, and treats stop when the visitor leaves. Same thing with people visiting in the yard, or over the fence. Visitor ignores him, he gets treats during the visit.

Hope that helps.

 

So, a couple of things. First, as others have said - fear period.

Thank you very much MeadowCat. I understand and agree with everything you said. I've started "socalizing" him by letting watch the world at his distance and rewarding appropriate behavior. He doesn't need to meet every person or every dog we see - I think that is the mistake I made with the first dog.
Thank you for the tips on house visitors, that is great advice.
In the truck, he is in the backseat (it folds down to a flat surface, on a sleeping bag and I have a leash attached to him so he can't go into the front seat. He likes the truck, and he does have a bully stick to chew on which he normally is doing. It could be that he is on a leash and knows he can't go far, so that may be part of it. I will work on the "Look at that" while in the truck as well.

Again, thank you for taking the time for the feedback!

 

Meadowcat beat me to the punch - exactly what she outlined above!

btw, who approaches a Doberman (or GSD or Mal or....any dog) with outstretched arms to get in the dog’s face? IMO, that is just asking for trouble.
It sounds like you have a good foundation and can implement the advice above and get some great results. Good luck!

 

Generally it sounds like fairly normal puppy behavior for a Doberman puppy. And I agree with the others who have posted on your questions but I have one of my own--what is this "groaning"? Almost sounds like a whine situation to me--in which case I'd say it's just a puppy very uncomfortable in the situation.

But could you describe it for me a little further?

dobebug

 

Hi dobebug, thanks for the feedback. By "groaning", I should have said a very low/quiet growl (no teeth and the ladies didn't even hear it). I could just tell he was uncomfortable.

Thanks again !

 

As other posters have said, fear period pops to mind. However, not every dog experiences their fear period in the same way. Temperament and very early experiences will contribute to how a dog will react at this age. Not every puppy in their fear period growls and barks at the possible threat. My previous dog was pretty much bulletproof , even as a puppy. I didn't even know dogs had fear periods before my current dog! I would be wary of doing too much with Doug and getting him to a point of being overtired, as you stated in your post. This can lower a dog's threshold when put in stressful situations. How is he handling going to daycare 4 days a week? Do you know if he gets scheduled naps there? As for my experience, my dog started having reactions much like Doug's at around 6-7 months (he's a standard dachshund). I worked with him using BAT techniques (Grisha Stewart - really recommend her book) and I dialed down the intensity of his socialization and increased the quality - controlled and consistently positive experiences. BAT and brushing up on dog calming signals really helped me read him better and prevented him from crossing his threshold. I found that teaching a dog that he can avoid a scary thing by remaining calm is better than rewarding him for letting a strange man pet him while he's clearly uncomfortable. The former builds up confidence, while the latter can increase potential reactivity and deteriorates trust with the handler. Now that he's an adult (technically, because he still acts like a goofy pup a lot of the time), he is much more confident, sociable and tolerant of weird stuff happening around him. But I do not ever stop reading his body language. If I see any hint of discomfort, I do not let people or their dogs invade his space. He's actually quite a sociable dog , but he does not like unknown people coming up to him uninvited when he's on walks (and neither do I hehe). After the fear period and working with him, he can now ignore the stimulus, look at me and move on without barking. Also, I would like to add that sometimes hand licking is not really a sign that a dog is fine with someone. Sometimes dogs lick and even expose their belly when they want to appease a scary stranger. If the stanger doesn't get it (most do not), the puppy will vary his behavior (bark growl) for the person to go away. What I would do with my dog when we had guests over was crate or leash him and give him frozen a kong . I prefer crating, because dogs tend to feel safer in their dens. When the guests would settle down and my dog showed he was calm, I'd let them interact. But I always asked them to ignore him unless he initiated contact - much like MeadowCat already explained. So , in sum, this isn't unexpected , but I do think it is linked to temperament. Although it will get better if you work with him the right way, it may mean your dog will choose to bark/growl when over his threshold as an adult. Maybe more knowledgeable members can chime in on this last point. Dogs are reinforced for barking/growling when the scary things go away. Best to avoid these reactions so that they learn that alternative/calmer behaviors also produce the same result. For every successful bark or growl, Doug will have to go through many many many experiences of being rewarded for staying calm. Sorry for the long post , but having been through this before recently, I don't want people to make the same mistakes I made.

 

Thank you dogperson, very much appreciate it and it was great to read about your experiences. At daycare, he does great, and I have told both daycares to please give him naps. They do have cameras, and often when I check in, I find him sleeping on top of a bed or kid play contraption

I'll look into that book, thanks again !

 

Super good point about the daycare, and I forgot to address that in my post.

Stress hormones take about 72 hours to leave the body. Even "good" stress is stress, so a dog that is going to daycare really often is getting "amped up" from the play time. Even a really good day care, one that rotates play time and rest time...I personally wouldn't send a puppy more than maybe 2 days a week, and I would make sure to have a couple of days in between the daycare days. And I would be VERY picky about which daycare I'd use.

This is a good illustration of how stress can build up...if you "stack" stressful events it can overflow into an outburst when a trigger happens, when the dog might normally be able to cope with such an event: The Stress Bathtub

This is another reason I don't "socialize" or have events every day for a puppy (or, even, for my well adjusted adult dogs...). It's good to build in down time for dogs when they've had a very stimulating activity, even if it's something they enjoy!

 

Thank you MeadowCat, I didn't know that aside from reading that puppies can easily get overtired. That makes a lot of sense. I will try to limit his daycare as much as I can (2, max 3 days a week). Unfortunately right now, it is necessary as my wife and I have very demanding jobs. When he is not at daycare, I found myself running myself ragged to "wear him out" with training/walking/playing/games, but then I read about the "overtired". Now I give him crate naps, which he is fine with, and it has been much better for him and for my career

Thanks again for all of the feedback, greatly appreciate you!

 

Keep in mind that puppies actually need a lot of sleep, too. One of my trainers was interviewed about the changes during this pandemic with everyone being at home, and how much she's noticing "behavior issues" because puppies are simply not getting the normal amount of sleep...they'd normally sleep MUCH more if people were away at work (Healing Sleep).

Sometimes we misunderstand the idea of "tiring them out" and provide TOO much stimulation. Yes, they need physical activity, but they also need little bits of training and mental stimulation, and they also need to learn how to simply relax and rest. Some dogs/puppies aren't naturally good at learning rest/an "off-switch" and they need to be taught that...either crate or x-pen, being taught "place" or resting on a mat or bed. I would truly recommend reducing his activity time at daycare to no more than one, MAYBE two days a week, and for only two or at most, three hours. I think if you do that, and then spend a little more down time at home simply doing things like "find it" games with his food, some very short training sessions to engage his brain, feed him using stuffed Kongs or food toys...all of that will help him out. Things like frozen stuffed Kongs are really great ways to engage him without running you ragged!

I also like to do "sniffing walks" with my dogs...I might take them in an area that has a lot of interesting smells and let them be on a 10 foot long line, and we just go slow...they can sniff as much as they want. The goal isn't to go far, or fast, but it's SO much more tiring than a "normal" walk. I might even bring kibble to scatter in the area as we walk (assuming it's safe) and my dogs "find" the food as we walk, which is super fun for them. Using their nose is very, very tiring!

 

Hi All,
First time posting here but have read a lot, thank you all for so much information. We are 1st time dobie owners, our male is 5 mo. old (had him since 8 weeks), his name is Doug In advance, sorry if this post becomes a novel but I truly appreciate any feedback.

We've had quite a few dogs via rescue, foster etc.. Our big lab/shepherd mix who passed 2 years ago, had some definite "fear" based issues towards people, so I have a little bit of PTSD from that and, honestly, am looking for some assurance some of the things we have experienced with Doug is normal (more protection or "I'm only 5 months old" based) for this breed.

Overall, Doug is great. I exercise him via 1-2 30 minute walks a day, playing in the yard, or 3 - 4 days a week he goes to doggy daycare, where he does very well, they always say how well he plays with the other dogs and they adore him. He also does a lot of clicker based training, 1-2 sessions a week at the daycare with their trainers, and I do clicker training with him daily. He's very smart and responsive. FYI we also have a lab, a pomeranian and a cavalier that he loves, they're working on loving him back but everyone gets along just fine.

So, here's the scenarios of concern and also some positives:
*On walks, he does fine with passerby, unless (not all the time, just sometimes) they are coming out of their house or walking down their driveway and we happen to be in front. Hair up, bark bark bark. I am currently walking him with a clicker and treats, so I do my best to keep his attention beforehand and the "look at that" technique. If I don't get to it in time, and he gets aggitated, its tough to bring him back under threshold so I basically have to pull him to keep moving.

*While in car, he will bark and groan (no teeth showing) if we are, say, at a stoplight and there is a pedestrian waiting for the light.
*Due to Covid, we've only had a few people over, one of which was my sister. He did okay with her, especially since she brought her dog. Laid next to her, didn't bark but just at first. Toward the end of the visit, she bent down while he was laying on his mat and he got a little spooked and ran over to me. This incident was probably what concerned me regarding "fear". That said, he had been at daycare all day and possibly was overtired.
*He does have alot of friends that are people on the street, and he loves all of the workers at his daycares.
*We took him to an outdoor mall yesterday and he was completely aloof to all the people. One lady asked to take a picture and he liked her, one gentleman came up very abruptly, arms out trying to pet him and Doug groaned a bit, a couple barks, hair up. I called Doug over to me and made him sit, then he was okay.
*Take him to Petsmart at least once a week to walk around and get a toy or something, no issues there, not phased at all by people walking by etc.
*Just like the man above at the outdoor mall, my neighbor (who also owns a dobie) tried to approach Doug in the same manner, bending down, arms out, almost like he was tripping toward Doug. Doug backed up, barked etc.. Just prior, he had wanted to introduce his doberman to Doug, but the dobie was not super friendly and was growling. Doug's reaction in this scenario I assume is perfectly normal, regardless of the breed/temperament.
*We were chatting next door in our neighbors yard and Doug was playing with their retriever. The two ladies were out with us, and the gentleman was standing at the dutch door (top part open). Doug licked his hand a few times and seemed fine, but also groaned at him a little bit later while the gentleman was talking.

So that's that, I guess my overall concern is I've never known a 5 month old puppy to bark at people. I am trying to rest my mind at ease, and my wife and I will do everything we can, continuing training, socialization etc... I think alot of it is in my head, and while I do all the right things to be the pack leader (make him wait at doors, wait for food etc..), I know that my anxiety is not helping the situation at all.

Appreciate your feedback, sorry for the length !

Sounds like Doug is a normal, healthly, happy, well loved 5 month old puppy. Enjoy him,

 

Sniffery‘s are awesome.
Hoss has a 15 foot lead and sniff sniff sniff.
Normally no one else is around so he is really focused.
He starts out excited moving quickly sniffing.
As minutes goes by he continues but slows down.
Its fun to watch the stages of relaxation when they are doing something that comes so natural to them Like sniffing.
Fun Stuff.