dog doesn't like 1 particular person, why?

[Sabrina]

I have a 6 yr old pure mutt, Bella-Luna, I think her 2 top breeds are pit and lab. She loves everyone, she just turned 6 in August. but one time when I was having some friends over for my 17th b-day 4 years ago, when she was only 2, she barked and wasn't wagging her tail when one of my friends came in. She kept barking and wouldn't stop. My friend went down to her level, and was very calm, but for some reason, this was the only one of my friends she did not like. Do you have any idea why she picked one person that she didn't like. We never had problems with her liking people up until then, and never had a problem with her liking anyone after that. She loves everyone, esp kids,dogs,cats, and other animals. We just thought it was kinda weird that she didn't like someone, it surprised us. She's been living in our house since she was 9 months old. In our house, she had a different owner before us, but I still took care of her a lot. Any ideas? Thank You so much for doing this!!!!

[Trish McMillan]

Hi Sabrina,

Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to get into an animal's head and know why they pick the friends they do (I wonder this about people too sometimes!)

I've met dogs that were fearful of people wearing hats, people with beards, people who smell of alcohol - their world is pretty different from ours and sometimes things that seem very normal to us are very weird to them.

Dogs reach social maturity between 18 and 36 months or so, and this is not an unusual time for them to begin making their own decisions about things.

You did the right thing having your friend get less scary - having that person provide special toys or treats might also help her get over this reaction if it happens again. But if it hasn't happened in the last 4 years it's very likely it was a one-off event.

Trish