Before spending too much time worrying about what you can do when your dog starts to growl at men or children, first start with how much you can control your dog’s exposure to men and children. While you work on changing your dog’s reaction to these two kinds of people, it will be helpful to limit exposure to moments when you’re able to work with your dog.
Think back to the times your dog reacted to men and kids.
Let’s take a step back to notice any specific triggers or patterns that causes your dog to growl at men and children. Answer these questions:
- At what distance does your dog seem to start to get stressed about seeing a man or a kid?
It’s very likely that they are showing signs of stress before they start barking. Some signs of stress may be licking his lips, yawning, stiffening up, raising his hackles, or trying to hide. - Are they fine when it’s one kid or man, but not okay if they’re in a group?
- Do they seem more comfortable if the person is still rather than moving around?
- Does your dog react differently to men and children in a public place than in the home?
- Is there a certain age of child, or a certain height of child, that your dog reacts to?
- Does your dog respond differently to men and dogs when he’s on leash or off leash?
- Do they respond more, or less, to men who have any specific physical traits that you notice? Is the response the same with all men, or does your dog seem to feel differently depending on, say, whether the man is wearing a hat?
To change your dog’s behavior (growling), you need to change your dog’s feelings about men and children.
To start, identify the least threatening scenario. You can deduce this by asking yourself the questions above. This scenario can be as simply or complex as is necessary; for instance, one bearded man standing twenty feet from your dog in a public park is no big deal, but that same person standing five away would cause your dog to bark.
Once you have identified your ideal scenario, start at a point where your dog still feels okay and you feel in control. Start by feeding your dog the second they look at a man who is standing 20 feet away. You can use a clicker or a marker word like “yes” to pinpoint the moment that your dog seems to notice the man. To really drive home the point that your dog is getting rewarded simply for looking at the man, give your dog a treat after using the clicker or “yes”. After a few rounds of that, see if the man can step two feet closer. Keep doing this until the man is close enough to give the dog a treat on his own.
When that’s easy, start escalating the scenario. See how your dog does with two men standing together 20 feet away. You can also try the original exercise in a new environment. This may take significant time, but it is important to be patient and start out very slowly with your dog, practicing over the course of multiple days or weeks.
Here are the 4 important parts of what we call counter conditioning.
The concept of count conditioning in dog training is to help re-teach a dog to have a good and new association with something that was once disliked or feared. Over time, the dog will begin to associate the odd or feared item with the delivery of a delicious reward. Below are four important parts of counter conditioning:
1. Focus on your dog’s emotion, not the behavior you don’t like.
If you can change their emotion, the behavior will change too. Chances are your dog is growling out of fear. By pairing the ‘scary’ person with a treat, you are starting to change your dog’s feeling towards said ‘scary’ person.
This part is important: if your timing isn’t perfect and they growl before you give the treat, give him the treat anyway. That can feel wrong because it can seem like you’re rewarding a behavior you don’t like. But remember that this behavior stems from an emotional experience, and it’s your job to change your dog’s current emotional experience. Think of it like trying to get someone to stop crying. Rather than trying to stop the tears from leaving their eyes or yelling at them to change their behavior, you can figure out how to make them not sad, and the crying should then go away.
2. Don’t be afraid to take a step back in the process.
You don’t want to push your dog to react, but rather to go in small enough increments so there isn’t a reaction. If 20 feet away is fine but 18 feet isn’t, work at rewarding your dog for looking at the man 19 feet away. You can keep sessions very short so that there is less time for things to devolve.
3. Only make one thing hard at a time.
If you decrease the distance from the 20 feet to 18 feet, don’t then ask the man to do jumping jacks or add a second man into the equation. One step at a time also helps you figure out specific actions that causes your dog to react.
4. Avoid surprise encounters during training.
While you’re working on desensitizing your dog to men and children, do what you can to limit encounters that are outside of your control. But have treats on hand that you can give your dog if they are faced with men or children, and do what you can to let men and children know they should keep as much distance as possible between themselves and your dog– for your dog’s sake!