Very occaisionally my 2 year old goldie will single someone out on a walk and run up barking and leaping about. It seems to be a mixture of apprehension and excitement. She is a talkative dog anyway, always barking, and can be very hyper when we meet people she likes. I would say on the whole its usually men. She doesn't do it often, probably about once a month, so its difficult to train it out of her. She can be a very nervous dog, which is where i think some of it stems from. THe trouble is that having a pack of 3 it sets the whole lot off, which can be very scary for the other person (I am very aware that the dog only has to cause worry to be done by the DDA act, which is why this is such a worry.) However as it is such an infrequent behaviour i don't think keeping her on lead helps as she won't be getting enough exercise and gets very would up around dogs and peole if on lead. However i really don't want my young spaniel to learn this behaiour as he is very big, bouncy and has a very menacing bark and is very impressionable at the moment. Tonight for example, walking along the deserted clifftop, a man gets out of his car and walks out in front of us. Ellie runs towards him barking, (meg is on lead because of injury, so she barks) which set murphy off. Poor man looked terrified. (I did apoplogise and say they were harmless, but that doesn't help does it!!) I did  call them but they didn't stop immediately. I don't know what to do! Has anyone else cured this problem?

Hi Lucy

How about a tin full of stones? You can throw it at the floor and shout 'NO' which should be enough to distract them out of it and after a couple of times, stop them completely. You can take it on walks with you without it being too big to cause much inconvienience but it is usually very effective. Or you could use a squirty water bottle, it depends on your dogs really.

As far as the poor victims go, tell them she is a rescue who has been ill treated by men (if it's a man) regardless of whether or not it's true! It will win their sympathy vote and if she will speak to them afterwards you can say something like, 'she must like you, she doesn't normally approach strangers...' which will make them feel special and like her even more and in all, reduce the chances of them complaining about you. ;-)

Good luck

I know how you feel as this is very much like the behaviour of my Labrador, although her usual targets are joggers.  She also sometimes barks at people she doesn't recognise.  It gets a bit embarassing having to apologise to people.

I took her to the woods this afternoon and for some reason she totally behaved herself, we met joggers and lone (male) walkers and everytime I called her back, she came straight to me.  I put her lead on and casually passed the people.  One man even stopped and said hello to her and she was a little angel!!

All I can think is that she can tell in my voice that I'm fed up of her bad behaviour and I'm not having her mess about any more.  I posted yesterday about this because I was so fed up!

I enjoyed our walk so much more because I wasn't so apprehensive, and felt a bit more confident with her, relaxed a little, perhaps she also picked up on this as well.