advice needed please .. my dog snapped at someone.

[wetwetwetfan]

He's a lovely dog. Well trained good as gold usually, always plays well with other dogs on the park... but...
He doesn't like people coming into our house. He barks a lot and it takes him a while to settle down, if the visitor is female he calms fairly quickly, even ending up on the lap of teenager daughters friends. If visitor is male he is very wary. Tends to bark more aggressively, to the point where I put him outside. A newish visitor came round and dog was barking, hubby calmed him down, dog sat next to visitors chair and accepted being stroked but when visitor stood up to leave, dog snapped at him and barked again.

Dog is a staffie\collie cross, 3 years old and we've had him from a puppy, although from a rescue centre. I need some advice from more experienced people about how best to deal with this. He really is a lovely, sweet natured dog when it's just our family in the house. It's just this aggressive behaviour when visitors come round. I don't want him to get a reputation....

Any ideas...???

This is a very common behaviour and one that can be changed with consistent training.

I would contact a member of the APDT as they can see the body language of the dog and give targeted training programme for you.

ADPT Trainers

Without seeing the situation it is hard to give detailed advice and the advice may be missing something that we cannot see.

I have a collie cross who displays this behaviour with strangers, especially men. I was told from a trainer this is almost always due to a lack of socialisation at a young age (my dog was a rescue at 9 months and ruined by this point)
I find the easiest thing to do is just remove him from the situation. No stress to him and no risk to visitors.

I have also spent a lot of time positively reinforcing him when people come to the house. For example he is obsessed with toys, so I had some male friends and family members come to the house specifically to play with him/treat him once he was calm around them. Obviously these people had to be pretty dog sensible though.

Overall the problem has improved but I would never trust him around strangers without careful introduction.

I would consult an experienced trainer and go from there.