Quote:He seems to lack confidence.
Are YOU training the dog with a trainer? Or are you dropping the dog off and coming back later to pick him up?
Once again, I'd just use food for this. It's an easy fix if you 'cave' and make it easy. Pack up a ziplock of real treats (cheese, chicken, liver, beef), have a hungry dog. YOU bring a happy and confident attitude, and go out into the world.
When you see someone look at your dog with the 'I love dogs' look, ask that person 'would you like to feed my dog a treat?' and hand over some of that chicken/cheese/liver.
There are many great reasons this works. First of all, your dog should love treats so associate new people with a GOOD thing to replace the fear. Second, when someone has a palm of treats (make them feed your dog like they would a horse, food on open palm) they HAVE to come in to your dog with their hand LOW and under the dogs chin. This is a very unthreatening posture so will calm the dog. The more nomal over the head to pet our dogs can be intimidating and add more stress to a dog that is already uncomfortable.
The reason we have to go to dog classes with our dog is because (frankly
) WE are the problem is alot of the training situations. Just cause we don't know. A professional trainer already HAS the necessary skills and abilities that WE need to learn for our dog. So we need to take the time to get them. Only about 25% of dog classes are about the specific behaviors and skills the dog needs, the other 75% is how WE NEED TO LEARN to teach that skill. So if we don't go, and we don't learn, well.................neither does the dog.