Hello,
We have started walking a neighbours dog at the weekend (we'd love to have a dog but work all week 9-5 so not enough time to give a dog a good home). Anyhow she's a lovely lab and when we started walking her, her owned warned us that she sometimes just barks at people randomly. The first few weeks nothing happened yet last weekend she did it a few times. We'd be walking down a path and a random person would be walking the opposite way and upon meeting them she'd just let out a few woofs, we'd say "no" and make her walk on and everything is fine. My worry is that some people would be worried by this (shes a big powerful dog), shes not at all aggressive, but I dont like upsdetting people.

Has anyone got any advice for how to deal with this... I'm not owned a dog for many years so training is very rough and at the end of the day she's not my dog.

I just want us all to have nice walks.
s

It depends, it sounds like the owners don't find this worrying - and if they're not worried are they going to be willing to work on it?
It's unlikely that you can fix it by working on it at weekends if they let her do it all the way through the week.

If they are happy to work on it then it may be simple to fix, but it needs to be consistent.

I'm interested that this didn't happen the first time you walked her, but it has happened since she's grown used to you

This suggests she may be attempting to look after you or guard you from strangers, rather than having an issue with strangers herself

Now a dog should really be looking for guidance before going ahead and making decisions about whether somebody needs fending off or not, so who makes the rules when you're out?

Do you make this dog sit at kerbs before you cross?

Does she come when you call her?

Does she walk ahead of you?

All of these are basic indicators of your relationship with the dog, and great exercises you can do to establish who makes the rules, therefore who decides who is allowed to walk in the same street as you ;)

I have spent only an hour walking a dog who belonged to a neighbour of my sister - a beagle (who's not supposed to display aggression at all) but he'd begun behaving in this way after having not been trained to walk nicely on a lead by his owners who were just being too nice... and then a baby arrived... and he just couldn't trust these nice people to look after a precious little person!

It didn't take long for him to find out that we're not crossing the road until all the beagles sit nicely, and we're not walking anywhere with one of them leading the way - it's the Strixes that make that decision ;)

I have no idea how he behaved when he next went out with his owners, but he looked alot more relaxed when I returned him, and would have confidence he would remember the 'rules' if I took him again the next week :thumbsup:

Sorry - didn't read it as though the dog was guarding, I thought it was more an excited woof when meeting someone new from what you had said - hence my response :rolleyes:

It could be lotti - without meeting the dog, and making an assessment, we've no way of knowing, but either way, allowing a dog to feel confident of who's in control is always a good start to solving most things :)

sorry guys - forgot to respond to your comments.......

shes a very happy dog and since I made the original post she has not barked once !!
The day when she did bark though, it was raining ... so we believe she struggles with covered heads/faces ?
since then we have not seen people wearing hoods/hats

to answer earlier questions

yes she comes when called
yes she sits at each kerb
and yes she does walk with us - when in a strange place she likes to walk between us. When we first set out shes a little giddy and pulls, but she soon settles down.

Since I made the last post - she has also got very friendly with other dogs - at the weekend we met 3 dalmations in eccy woods - she had quite a long play with them and remained friendly throughout.
she is also quite friendly with people...

the bark is an inbetweener....
its not a hapyy excited bark yet its not a teeth bearing growly bark either...
its just a three to four woofs... by which time I told her to shut up - and she did.

sounds like you don't really have a problem with her then :thumbsup:

enjoy your walks :)

our male lab is like that

when off lead he is great but when on lead if another dog barks not matter how loude alfie barks the loudest you could ever hear

and if another dog growls wow you should hear him but as soon as we tell him to clam down he does and if the dog that growls stops and walks up to him while alfie is still giving it the big i am alfie just fusses them really weird as to stand back you would think alfie is going to rip its head off

we do make both our labs sit when crossing road
sit at top of stairs till we have gone down or sit at bottom if we going up
also when going in and out of house i do a humans before dogs or they just pull me out and it gets annoying

holly is brill comes back when we ask but alfie just thinks everything is a game and runs round and round in circles