Anxious dog
I have a medium to large 3 year old anxious rescue. He’s not a huge fan of strangers but isn’t aggressively reactive. He just doesn’t want to be pet and if he’s not into the person he’ll just walk away. He tends to freeze and stare at people that I guess he feels suspicious of as well as may walk the other direction. If people come up to him really fast he tries to hide behind me.
I’ve been experiencing a few interactions lately with strangers that is making me quite agitated and annoyed, and wondering how others deal with this or if I’m just being overly protective. I’m starting to feel like I might become reactive towards people soon because I guess I’m finding it shocking that people would behave this way. On more than one occasion, I have people whistle and try to get my dog’s attention while we’re walking, which of course will make him stop at times, freeze, and stare. Sometimes I can’t get him to move and I don’t want to pull him because usually that doesn’t even work and I don’t want people think I’m hurting him. I usually try to give the person a look signalling that I don’t like that they’re doing that. I’m sure I should say something but I also don’t want to get into a full blown argument. Another situation has also been happening where parents are letting their 2-3 year old children just run up to my dog thinking he’s going to give off golden retriever energy which is far from the case. For these situations, I do say something like “he’s not friendly” which has been working. I’m just annoyed that some parents would just allow their kids to run up to any dog without asking..
Anyways, looking for people to validate my feelings and experience as well as provide any advice on how I should approach these situations.