Hello! I have an adorable boxer male who is afraid for almost everything outside the house. He seems to be handler-weak, cheerful in the family and plays a lot with our 9 year old boxer male who is doing a great job setting boundries for the pup. We try to stay calm and assertive when the young one is showing fear. When he is in the backyard and a dog passes by, he charges against the fence and shows agression but you can tell from his barking that its all about anxiety and fear. When he does these attacs, we immediately sit him down, hold a firm grip with one hand over his "snout" and say "NO" with calm and assertive stature. He calms down very fast with this treatment.
On walks, he is walking quite nice but in a very nervous state, looking around and listens to cars, dogs barking in the neighbourhood, birds chirping and he is really anxious all the time. We have taken him to training fields for dogs where he could watch other dogs but he will not go near them. Not even the most placid dogs. When we are walking both our dogs he is in another, confident state and he tries to take the lead all the time. I dont want him to rely only on the security and the precense of an alpha-dog so we walk them separately. When he is walking nice, we praise him but we dont pay any attention of his fearfulness. If we meet people, we try to make them say hello to him and we give them treats to offer him to make meeting with strangers a pleasant experience. In those occasions, he is very cautious but he accepts the treats offered by the "strangers". We always try to pat him under his chin - never from above on the head. This is my 6th boxer male and I have NEVER before seen this behaviour in my other dogs. He has been like this since we got him at 8 weeks. Is he beyond saving?
He is fairly quick to learn otherwise. (Sorry for my bad english...)
