# After 1 year, Rocky's fear is nearly gone! :) :) :)



## x0emiroxy0x (Nov 29, 2010)

If you weren't here a year ago when I posted about Rocky's fear aggression that led to him "fake nipping" someone and being completely fearful and growling at anyone that came in my house, here are the back stories:

http://www.germanshepherds.com/foru...rightened-rockys-recent-biting-strangers.html

http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/stories/173926-news-rocky-post-biting-incident.html

Anyways, here is what I am bragging about:

After over a year of socializing Rocky almost every, single day, he is as close to being a normal confident dog as I think he will ever be.

I don't ever "test" Rocky to see if he is better around strangers. He is always on leash during our training exercises and I never allow strangers a chance to pet him unless I ask them to/am ok with it.

Due to his confidence at a recent pet festival and how well he is doing at Petsmart, I decided to invite a dear friend over that had never met Rocky before but knew of his training situation. She came in, sat on the couch, and we left Rocky in his kennel and sat and talked for about ten minutes. I watched Rocky to see if there was any sign of fear/aggression and he was completely relaxed in his kennel. Then he started crying to come out and play with us. I let him out of the kennel and not only did he not do the "fearful sniff" (when he sniffs someone but has his whole body slinked, ready to run at any second), he didn't even care that my friend was in the room. He ran straight up to me, licked my face, then got a toy and brought it to her. They played for about 15 minutes, and he was in her lap, giving her kisses, and doing all his tricks perfectly for her the whole time

You would never know he had once been scared of strangers in the house    

Even with this awesome behavior the last month, I am still going to keep training him every other day and keep him kenneled when more than 2 people are over so he doesn't revert back.

This is her with him after about 5 minutes of playing:


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## GSDGunner (Feb 22, 2011)

That's awesome! You've done a great job with Rocky and should be commended. 
:toasting:


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## DJEtzel (Feb 11, 2010)

Awesome to see! 

Great job. Feeling is amazing, isn't it? 

You're working towards a CGC now, right?


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## JakodaCD OA (May 14, 2000)

good job! your seeing your hard work pay off,,keep it up


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## BlackCat (Sep 22, 2011)

Oh, my! What a success story! Congratulations to you and to Rocky.


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## x0emiroxy0x (Nov 29, 2010)

lol I would say we have been slowly but surely working towards a CGC, practicing all the parts but focusing mainly on socializing (because there is no way to pass it if he is flinching from people that aren't even looking at him!)

I think after about 3 solid months of training, we are going to try. I don't want to set him up for failure so I am going to wait until I am sure he can do it!


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## sassynsweet (Oct 15, 2012)

Congrats!! That is fantastic! You must be very proud


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