I don't think that my quiet action of telling the dog she needed to stop barking was unpredictable as in abusive if that is what you are saying. She acts like she has never been socialized. If I had acted predictably, I would have coddled her and said in a sing-song voice to be quiet. I was told she has to have the bark collar on her when the young daugher has friends over to play; they just place the bark collar on her, never letting her know what she is doing is wrong without the shock treatment. I think that is abusive.
Yes, she seemed to be glad someone took control of the situation by tellling her that her actions were inappropriate and I was in control, not her. I did not physically touch her or scare are.
She ran away before I corrected her from the other dog. She also ran away from anyone trying to pet her except her close owners. I am not saying all evening I worked with this dog; I just once corrected her. It got her attention; then owner came back and the same behavior resumed.
Obviously it would take more time to correct this fear barking behavior as that is what I call it. I felt like she was trying to control everything because her owners were not.
Just putting in my two cents here. I am not a dog trainer, just a dog owner. What should I have done if I was wrong?
I never said that you abused the dog, either physically or mentally. I wasn't suggesting that at all. I'm a first time dog owner and not a trainer by any stretch, but I would have handled the situation differently. I think we can both agree that the dog was barking out of fear/fear aggression, right?
Your correction was to present a startling sound/action to stop the behavior. It's good that you were being proactive, but is it so different than the "bark collar"?
You: Dog is scared and barks, you get the dogs attention with a sudden correction.
Collar: Dog is scared and barks, collar gets the dog attention with a sudden correction, albeit harsher/more painful than yours.
The different is just a matter of magnitude. In both cases, the dog learned that even thought it is scared it shouldn't bark in order to avoid the correction. That is quite different than the dog learning to be comfortable in new situations or in the presence of new people.
Next time, could you try taking 5 treats and having the dog work for them? First, have the dog sit. Then, have the dog down. Then go back to a sit. Ue the 4th treat to get the dog to stand, 5th to have the dog sit. Then, praise her and let her know that you aren't someone to be feared. The lessons to be learned from this are:
1) You show up and offer treats
2) To get the treats, the dog must listen to you
3) You are a confident leader. Instead of acting unpredictably, you redirected the barking and focused her attention on something more constructive.