barking staffy

Hi

Our 7 month old female staffy is very friendly with bigger dogs and people, but twice has barked at and tried to pull to get nearer two different girls for no reason, one 3 years old and the other around 8 ..... any ideas?

Doesn't sound un common to be honest x

Thank you for your reply.

It just worried me a bit, as the girls hadn't done anything to provoke Nika. It was at separate times, the first was a hot day we were sat in a pub garden Nika was on her lead tied to the picnic bench. A girl about 6 came over and gave Nika a treat, then came over a bit later with the younger girl. She got excited to see them then she just flipped and started barking and pulling at her lead to get to the young girl, which obviously upset the girl. The second time, we were sat outside a cafe on holiday when two young girls were walking up passed us and Nika just started barking at the younger of the two, which again upset the girl. It seems to be happening for no apparent reason and is quite embarrassing. Nika is always a happy excitable puppy and can't understand what is causing this. We had a staffy a good few years ago and she never did this.

Thanks

Sorry from your first post I thought you meant girls as in dogs not humans. That is strange - Xx

May have just been excitement, the young girls may have seemed quite good fun to the dog who probably just wanted to play with them, did they have young girly squeaky voices ?

Just re-read your first post there, I didn't realise it was little people she was barking at at first. Obviously you don't want this happening, it's embarrassing for you and scary for the girls. You need to train this out of Nika.

You'll need to watch her body language and before she can react Get her attention and then make her concentrate on you and when calm reward with treats but not until totally calm.

I don't think you can put this down to them being small but it could be any sort of trigger. Training that's the key I think.

hi yes def training and to teach her thats wrong, we took her puppy training and was good, mostly good off her lead in a field and with bigger dogs, but put her on lead if little ones about (people and dogs) but just wants to say hello most of the time to everyone and lays on her back for a tummy rub x