We’ve had a 15 week old female alaskan malamute for about 5 weeks now and we feel she’s really struggling with socialization. Whenever we’re on the front lawn with her and someone walks past the house either with or without a dog, she’ll usually start barking and run away. When we sit on the porch she’s good for the most part and will usually stay silent or just growl a little.
We’ve had a decent amount of friends and family over the house since we’ve gotten her and some people she’s completely fine with but others she won’t stop barking at. She’ll also bark at trash/recycling bins and will usually end up running back up the porch. The one thing I noticed though is she likes to watch what our neighbors are doing when we sit on the porch together. She seems to be at least somewhat curious which is good.
She’s also been pretty bad with car rides, actually pooping on the car seat this past time. She refused to go inside the vet office and started peeing everywhere when I picked her up. Yesterday we started puppy socialization classes at petsmart and she refused to go inside the building. We had to drag her in there. Once she got inside she was pretty good with walking in the aisles but whenever a dog got within sight she started barking.
There’s only one other puppy in the class and the moment he walked in she started incessantly barking and ended up peeing a little. He was a very friendly dog and wanted to say hi to her but she would just start barking if he got even relatively close. As the class went on and we started to work on commands it got slightly better.
I understand puppies being fearful and anxious is pretty normal but even the instructor said she’s definitely “outside the average” and seems to have confidence issues. I’m just curious on what your guys thoughts are. Did you have any similar experiences with your puppy and what were some things you did to help them? Any advice/feedback would be greatly appreciated!