Our cocker spaniel puppy is wonderful, except he thinks that everything in the world is scary but me. No matter what we can't convince him that my husband is not the boogy man and that he's not going to eat him. Whenever he gets near he runs and hides, or if he's in my lap he presses against me like he's trying to meld into my stomach. We've tried to get him to like my husband by having him feed him and give him treats, but he won't even go near the food or treat if my husband is near. I've tried to not praise him or cuddle him too much when he scampers to me in fear to not reinforce the behavior. He hasn't had any negative encounters with my husband, and we're not sure why he thinks he's so scary. How can we convince him that he's not a bad guy?

No sure if this works for your husband. But it works for me in the pass, every time when I got near him, it will starts to pee. I'll always go near to the dog when it's a sleep, and gentlely scratch his stomach. It will start feeling itchy and comfortable. Sometimes I let him bite my hands, disturb him and run away. Now my dog will start chasing me if I turn my head and starts running.

The puppy may have never been socialized to men. Has your husband tried totally ignoring the puppy, even if it ventures toward him? He might even try sitting or lying on the floor to watch television, keeping conversation to a minimum and never looking at the puppy. If the puppy eventually comes over for a sniff, don't try to reward it, just continue to ignore. Nothing happens one way or another, so hopefully he becomes at least a neutral person to the pup. From there you can start to make positive associations. You are right to not reinforce the fear; in fact stand up and walk off if the puppy tries to jump in your lap. I think you are on the right track.

There is a website that I visit on a regular basis that has given me a lot of help for my little girl. There is a "lounge forum" quite like this one, where you can ask questions specifically about dogs. Give it a try! They have helped me with all sorts of things from barking to skunk sprayings.

Dog Tricks Training Lessons Online

Hope that helps, and good luck to your husband and pup! :)

Hmmm, I gave you the website address that I have and it came up different on here when I typed the address in and hit reply. I'll just spell it out for you and maybe you can Google it. It's called "dog trick academy .com " I'm not sure why it came up different because I typed in the actual address for you. Hope you can find it because they are very helpful with problems like you mentioned.