New dachshund barks at daughter

[truedog]

About a month ago we brought home a 9 month old male wire hair dachshund. He immediately bonded with me and within hours of bringing him home he became my instant best buddy. However when my 19 year old daughter walks into the room, he just wants to bark at her, and is very timid an reserved when she pets him. He does the same thing with my wife, but doesn't bark as much and warms up to her after a few minutes. My daughter just can't seem to bond with him though. She is 19, and 6'3", and quite loud so she may be scaring him, but I'd like to see him become comfortable with her. Any tips? He does seem to be more timid around women so we wonder how he may have been treated by the women he was around while very young.

 

[Inkeri]

We have similar problem with Manu. He's very timid around strange people and doesn't want to be touched. He esp doesn't like men. There's nothing in his past that might explain this, I guess it has something to do with lack of socialising (I blame myself partly) and he's a dachshund. He's also very territorial.
Manu also barks at men, but he's not aggressive at all. What we do is that when someone comes for a visit they don't pay any attention to Manu no matter what he does. Manu relaxes after a while and goes to sniff them on his own and after that things are ok.
Never let people pet him on his head or bend over him. Tell them to turn their backs on him if he's timid and never look in the dogs eyes.

This has helped us.

I also got this advice from a dog trainer:
When a stranger comes near you treat the dog and when the stranger goes away you stop treating. This is how the dog realizes that he gets treats when ppl are around.
Never tried this, but might work also. Esp with you because your dog has a problem with only a few ppl.

 

[Steph]

It's going to take a lot of patience on your wife and daughter's parts to get him to come around. He's already making steps toward your wife. Your daughter however, you've said that she's loud - that in itself will probably frighten him. If she wants to be interactive with your boy, she needs to calm and quiet. It sounds like he's on the defense around her. Does she make eye contact with him when she enters the room? He could see that as her challenging him.

What you could do, and I'm not sure who gives out the food in your house, is get your wife or your daughter to feed him, take him potty, all the things that we would do for our dogs, BUT the main focus is being calm and patient with him. Make all things connected to them positive.

And you are right, there may have been something in his earlier life that was connected to a woman and it frightened him. Pups between the ages of 8 and 16 weeks are at their prime learning time. Anything in those first few weeks that could frighten them will make a lasting impression on them. So it takes quite a long time with an abundance of patience to make them come around.

Good luck!

 

[DeafDogs]

You have gotten great advice so far. The other thing to consider is if you have him on your your lap, if he starts barking you just get up and walk away. Dont let him try to protect you. HE gets no attention from you if he's barking. Attention is the most important thing for our breed (usually) and if he gets none from you, not even negative, he's more likely to stop.

 

[truedog]

My wife is really working with Rusty and making progress, but my daughter is a defiant teen who just makes matters worse by getting angry when he starts barking. I am sure he senses that anger (since it comes off of her in waves) and it translates into fear and a need to try to protect me. I will try moving away from him when he barks at her (though I have a feeling he will just get up and follow me). Here's a pic of Rusty and the 12 weeks old female Molly who we got around the same time. She was about 8 weeks when this pic was taken, growing like crazy!

 

[DeafDogs]

Awe they're adorable!!! I LOVE wires!

If he gets up to follow you, that's perfectly fine (and probable), you just keep ignoring him until he's quiet. Hopefully you can convince your daughter that he's not going to get better with her unless she calms down. He's scared and unsure and anger is the worst thing for him.

 

[MeaghanM]

I'm glad I came across this! Just joined and my reasoning for joing was almost this exact problem! Great things to try!