Over protective Staffy

Hi everyone

I have a 18month old male Staffy. He is good as gold and has never shown any sign of aggression

His problem is that he is very protective in our home, whether some one walks past the house or comes to the door he barks like mad and jumps up at the door etc

Today, a workman came into the house to fix our boiler so we kept Jack in the livingroom. The workman said let me see him because he likes dogs so I like Jack in (as Jack normally loves the attention and is very friendly), but Jack ran in, stopped at the mans feet and went stiff, then started barking really aggresively so I grabbed him and put him in the livingroom and as I did he turned his head and caught his teeth on my knee. Nothing major but definately an eye opener

I need to sort this behavior because we are due a baby in a few months and I can't risk him being aggresive towards visitors. He is perfectly fine with people he recognises and until today I thought he was fine with visitors once he realised they wern't a threat.

He is always a bit submissive towards men and seems wary, we got him at 3 month old from a lad who wasn't bothering with him so I think during his first few month a man might have mis treated him and this has made him a bit wary

What can I do to make him less protective in the house? Any help greatly appreciated

Also, when some one is in the house he just lies at the living room door sniffing under the door whinging like mad to get to the person

Frankie barks too. Have you got family and friends that can visit regularly? Before they come in give them a bag of high value treats. When they get to the door get them to throw a treat towards him. Make sure there is no eye contact and take it slowly. Instead of them just walking in quickly, get them to take it slow and keep giving treats. Keep letting him know that hes ok. If you feel that he needs to be krot under control whilst they are doing this you can put him on his lead. It will take time but the main thing is he feels comfortable rather than threatened when visitors are round. He will eventually associate having visitors with positive experiences. It sounds like he just gets a bit nervous, with positive reinforcement I'm sure you will both be fine

Thanks for the advice, Im not too worried because he is really good natured. Just my GF gets upset when he's like this as she used to have an aggressive dog they had to put down so she has really bad flashbacks and obviously she loves our Jack so she doesn't want to go down that road again. I know it won't come to that

Need to get him to stop jumping up all the time when people come to the house, he gets so over excited

Really shocked me that today though

Frankie likes to dive on anyone who comes in the house and thinks they should all have staffie kisses!
If he's a bit weary of men and there was a man in his house eye balling him he probably felt threatened. I'm sure with a bit of positive reinforcement training you and you're gf will see a change of behaviour and feel more relaxed when visitors are coming over.

Pixee is wary of men. As our house is on the market, what we try to do, is if I cant take Pixee out, I will put her outside, and ask the people if they are ok with dogs, as Pixee will bark at strangers to start with, sometimes her hairs come up, I have a word which she seem to know is safe, 'ok', and 'not going to hurt you' I always ask the people to just ignore her and let her get use to them, and I will say to Pixee, now be good, its ok, they not going to hurt you, be a good girl, and she soon calms down once she knows they are not going to hurt her or me either, she is very protective of me you see. Once she is calm, I will give her a treat. Jack is just looking out for you.

We had our staffy from a rescue and the people she met straight away when we introduced them to her are fine coming into the house but any new visitors she reacts exactly as your describing.
We have now started to put her on the lead and slowly introduce them. After about 5 mins and when she's calmly sat at the side of me I allow her off her lead and she's not really too bothered by the new visitor only the treats they're giving her.
When sat with new visitors try one of his favourite toys to distract him that works with my dog too.