does anyone have any thoughts please....my friend has a dog that, when in its own home or garden, he is very very scared of strangers and if anyone enters he will go and hide. however once he steps outside his home/garden hes quite happy for people to come up and talk to him. He was the same in his previous home too! Im curious as to whether anyone has a theory on this?

First one that springs to mind is perhaps a little overzealous control by your friend of his puppy greetings. If he was told off for being too exhuberant in his greetings as a pup he could associate visitors with negative feelings. (I'm not accusing your friend of being an evil dog beater, he might be sensitive) Whatever the reason I'd try to look, from a dog's point of view, for any association between people coming into the home and a scary or bad event.

i dont know if this is any relevance but my staffy is very very nervous around people she dont know when she is out on walks she will cower and and shake however when people come to our home she is fine with them strangers or not.
even tho she was well socialised wen she was a puppy
do you maybe think he was subject to cruelty?

no i am 100% sure in both homes no cruelty or even harshness as i know both, and him, very well.

Perhaps something that would seem quite minor to us as a human being - such as accidentally being trodden on by a visitor, or a visitor with a loud voice, unusual laugh, coughing fit etc had a negative affect on the dog, doesn't have to have been a particularly noticeable event. My OH sneezed loudly as I opened the bathroom door which the pup was sitting in front of, it made our youngster jump and for several days he was wary of the bathroom door opening as he seemed to associate the door opening with the strange noise that had startled him. He soon got over it but still jumps if somebody sneezes.

Maybe a visitor in his previous home was less than friendly to him and he associates this with unfamiliar people coming into his home. There are so many different reasons that could be the cause of his nervousness in these situations :(

There could be many reasons for this, the most common one would be that he has been told off for toileting, so assocites anyone entering the house as getting a good telling off, that would be my first thought, but you say he has not been told off or badly treated in either of his homes so that rules that one out.:rolleyes:

I know when I was a child, one of my brothers used to like to hide behind the sofa when dad was coming home and jump out at him, and our male Collie started to copy him, whenever we said "Dad's home!" he would run behind the sofa and hide too :-D difference was his tail was wagging he was not scared like this little boy, I just wondered whether any of the owners children may have played this game too, possiblility! :-)

Whatever the reason, I would work to stop it, a way to do that is to lead him so that he can not run and hide and when visitors enter the house keep him with the owner, the visitor should ignore him, over 4 weeks of doing this the dog will come to realise there is nothing to fear and hopefully will stop hiding from the bogey man! ;-)