At what age did your dog become wary with strangers?

[harpazo777]

Recently over at /r/dogs, a poster expressed concern that her young adult ACD, around 13-15 months IIRC, had suddenly gone from being a friendly pup who loved meeting people to a wary, suspicious adult who didn't want to be touched by strangers. Several respondents, me included, remarked the same thing had happened with our ACDs or ACD mixes--friendly and outgoing throughout their entire first year, then sometime between 1-1.5 y.o., there was a sudden shift to a much warier, reserved personality, often initially accompanied by nervous backing away and/or growling.

It made me curious, because up until that point, I'd always assumed my ACD mix was a weird one-off in this regard, and that maybe it wasn't even breed-linked at all. I've owned dogs of various breeds/mixes before who were plenty aloof, but in those cases the trait surfaced much earlier, like 5-9 months. Luna was cheery and extroverted with everyone throughout her first year, but suddenly became wary and hesitant around friendly strangers at 13 months. Nothing bad had happened, no changes to her daily routine had occurred, but still the change was permanent and pretty dramatic.

So I'm just wondering what the "normal" range of age in ACDs for the emergence of the breed's typical wariness might be, based on the experiences of other owners. (Where applicable, that is--I know there are some friendly-for-life ACDs out there!)

FTR: puppy tax (Luna is ACD/Boxer)

 

[stormtboy]

@harpazo777 I adopted Indie as a one year-old from a local shelter, and he's been indifferent to strangers from day one. Totally happy to ignore everyone who isn't me or who doesn't have food. Call him and call him and he'll totally ignore you. Dude's like a ninja when it comes to being pet, though; master of the duck'n'dodge. Impossible to touch if he doesn't want you to.

Strange people approaching us and trying to touch him does make him uncomfortable on occasion, so he wears "do not pet" patches so 90% of people give him the space he prefers.

 

[harpazo777]

@stormtboy Luna does the duck'n'dodge too, but there's a good dose of nervous cringe in her "duck"...and at the same time a lot of sheepish tail-wagging, and fitful stepping voluntarily towards the person then ducking back again. So she does send mixed signals about greetings, and I don't think I could really call her indifferent. Her behavior with people she knows reasonably well ranges from skittishly sweet to effusively affectionate, depending on how familiar they are. For her, a "go say hi" setup (accompanied by me explaining "she's shy") works pretty well as a solution for the problem of strangers who want to pet...she gets to choose how long to stay near them, and the setup signals to the stranger that this isn't going to be a dog-sits-passively-while you-touch-as-much-as-you-want kind of thing. She's absolutely not a nipper, though; I'd never go with this approach if I weren't confident that the worst that could happen is the old duck'n'dodge.

 

[authenticwarrior1]

@harpazo777 Because these are mostly ACD mixes more often than not they are the results of irresponsible or accidental breedings. So the parents are not tested for health defects or for sound, stable temperaments. Genetics does play a role in the temperament of dog just as much as the dogs upbringing i.e. dogs from shy mothers tend to be more shy even if they are removed from their shy mother and raised with an outgoing mother. Patricia McConnell is a great resource for reading about studies involving dogs temperament and behavior. Proper socialization and up bringing helps but puppies from shy, nervous mothers will be more predispose to shy fearful behaviors.

Aloofness is a characteristic of an ACD but no responsible, reputable breeder of ACDs (or any breed) is breeding dogs that are afraid of strangers or growling at them. If they were it would be near impossible to compete (conformation, obedience, agility, herding etc.) with them and show they are worthy breeding stock.

That being said my ACD that I adopted as an adult went from super friendly to strangers to growling at them in the 1.5-2 year mark.

 

[harpazo777]

@authenticwarrior1 My dog's mom (ACD), who arrived at the rescue too pregnant to spay, definitely had a poor temperament (fear-aggressive). It wasn't a big disappointment for us that Luna matured to have some social anxiety; she's a mutt, both parents were BYB, we knew to expect the unexpected. It was really more the timing of her change from puppy extroversion to adult reserve that I found surprising, not the fact that she also turned out to have thin nerves (nowhere near as bad as her mom's, thankfully).

Maybe I'm confusing the emergence of aloofness with the emergence of plain old poor nerves. The ACD breed standard does say "naturally suspicious of strangers" (which I realize doesn't mean fearful), and young puppies of most all breeds/mixes tend to be pretty outgoing, so I'd figured what happened to Luna was basically that when her puppy uninhibitedness dried up, it exposed her weak nerves, and she suddenly started seeing threats in strangers rather than successfully maturing into a calm, wait-and-see reserve. It just seemed awfully late for that to happen...I've never had a dog with poor nerves before though, so I may be misreading things.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@harpazo777 Our dog may be an anomoly! He loves all people! He's 11yo, and loves everyone (even more so if they have food). He doesn't care for other animals, though.