Please could you enlightne me on this? I thought I understood a little about dog behavior but cannot recall hearing of this. The reason that I ask is that as a pup Truffle was fine, learning fast, obedient, happy and relaxed in most circumstances. Suddenly around the time of her first season - 9 months she changed in to a dog that is very unsure of herself and I have spent the last 18 months trying to gently get her back to where she was at 8 months! She is a Lab btw and I am used to them being anoyingly forward :)  

Yes there is a second fear stage around a year, my retriever started it around the time of her first season too, but i must admit she is now nearly 2 and hasn't really come out of it. SHe is a nervous dog by temperament anyway so it is likely that she will never change. We bought her a raised food bowl the other week. She was absolutely terrified of it cos it made a tinny noise. We wrapped insulating tape around the age and she is now eating out of it comfortably now without jumping back every few seconds. She certainly isn''t a typical happy go lucky goldie, i think she is a wanna be BC!

That sounds about right. Truffle is OK when she is with my other dog, but gets very stressed in strange situations without him and from about 9 months if you tell her off/ shout at her for doing something wrong whilst training she 'loses it' and goes in to silly puppy mode to try and deal with the stress.

I would be interested to know if anyone has any ideas to prevent this or what causes it, since up to the 9 month point I was going to breed from her, but now I dont feel that she is 100% temprement wise so will not breed her unless I can cure it.

I have a 12 month old Tibetan Mastiff that is just going through this for the second time , but when she is taken to shows as soon as she walks in the ring all the nerves ar forgotten and I could not ask for a better dog, but as soon as she comes out of the ring her tail is down again and we have to keep reminding her that it is there,but she still insists on her walks, if we are late she will start chewing door frames and dog crates nothing else
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We are hopeing that she will work her way through it, also she has statred to slaver when she is in the car some thing she did not do before.

God I thought I was the only one who had this.  My 2 year dally used to full of herself never had a nerve in her body god a RCC from junior then suddenly with no rhyme or reason has turned into a wreck.  I think it was just over a year when it happened.  She has had no bad experiences and I certainly dont breed nervous dogs her litter brother is full of himself.

I too will be interested to hear the replies.

my bitch went thru the second fear imprint stage at about 6 months, it only took her a few months to come out of it though. 

Everything that I can find says that they come out of this fear stage, however I would have to say that she is not the same selfconfident bitch she was previously. Part of the problem is that I didnt realise what was happening and thought she was being a stroppy teenager and was too hard on her and it has taken a while to rebuild her trust.

She is starting to come in to season now so she is really soppy at the moment bless her :)

my bitch was nervous after a few dog attacks we tried gently getting her used to dogs and strangers dident work she wanted to go say hello but got close then chickend out wimpered and ran away  . nothing worked but we have found taking her to places that are really busy helps alot . kind of puttin her right into the situation shes learning people and other dogs arent so bad after all .

Like lucy and Meg I think that we will have to learn to live with it, I have tried desensitsing her, but some days she can cope and others she gets really stressed and I am afraid that if I pushed her too far she would bite. Generally we manage ok but we had to give up agility as she was so scared of the equipment (although she loved the jumps). I do some times wonder if she is manipulating me just a little bit wiht what she will and wont do ;)   

Hi bluebell,  I've recently been reading Jan Fennell's Dog Listener books and it's just a thought but could Truffle be feeling too much like pack leader in your household?  Jan says this puts a huge amount of stress on a dog  so could this be causing the nervousness?

Hi annie ns
Fancy seeing you here!

I think she would like to be top dog, but logically you would think that if this was the issue she would be more stressed when she was with Hook than alone, this is not the case, she appears 'normal' with Hook but sometimes has problems without him. It is almost as if sometimes she suddenly realises that there is no 'buddy' there to support her. She is also worse if she is in a strange location (franky round the house she is a bit of a pushy so and so, with or without Hook).  To be honest the only time it really causes me a problem is when Im training. If I put her under too much pressure, she just loses it and we have to go right back to basics. BTW too much pressure can be just saying 'no' if she starts to run in or asking her to put her paws on a plank if we are doing agility.

Hi bluebell,  I get everywhere me!  Well that blows my theory - she's obviously just a sensitive soul (or she's trying to make you feel very guilty!).  As I'm thinking of getting a bitch next time, is this a common thing with bitches?  Don't remember it with my other two girls.

Hi Annie I think she has worked out the guilt thing! Dont think it is particually bitches, most of what Ive read about second fear stage says dogs are worse and that they grow out of it. I may have made it wors as it was about this time that I started doing 'serious' gun dog training with her :0 Still she is my first bitch so cannot really answer on a general level. Just that I will know better to keep an eye out next time I have a pup and perhaps not push so hard.