As some of you may remember we have always had problems with nervousness with Bella, now 1yr old. This meant that she lunged at everyone we met on a walk. This is now much improved but when I take her to a local area where she can be off lead she barks at people who don't have dogs (I think she is so distracted by dogs that she ignores their owners). Also a lot of joggers use the area and she barks at them too. When she does this she comes right to their heels as though she is going to bite them. Usually once we see someone we put her on the lead and at this stage once on the lead she will ignore them which is fine. The problem arises if we come on them unexpectedly i.e. when we round a corner perhaps. This happened yesterday and the jogger also had a dog so total mayham ensued as he kept moving so Bella kept after him and I was trying to get her to follow me. eventually she did but it spoiled a lovely walk. So after that long introduction my question how do you go from ignoring people on the lead to ignoring people when off the lead too. Also she is still very aggressive to dogs while she is on the lead but fine off.

You need to find willing volunteers that will be joggers for you, so that you can train her without being stressed that they are strangers and she might bite them. Keep her on a longline and harness, and see how she reacts when someone she knows jogs past and drops a piece of sausage/ham/cheese for her.

its funny isn't it - Stellar dislikes people without dogs when she's off lead - she doesn't go too close though - just makes a row about it... we just try to ignore her, and walk the other way to distract her, no idea if this will work though

thats spooky as today at the playing fields there was a guy walking through jumper around his waste and mac made a right fuss going up to him and yapping

now if the guy had been walking a dog offlead with him , mac would'nt of bother a bit

i carried on walking an shouted him and he came running but thats the first time he'd acted like that