[crazywiggy]

Caesars methods based on dog psychoplogy? I have never laughed so hard in my life!!!

Caesar Milan has NO training in psychology / animal behaviour etc. His theories and methods are incorrect, having ben disproved decades ago. His methods are unnecessarily harsh.

Seriously - please avoid Caesar Milan. His methods are nothing more than the old fashioned "yank and stomp" methods that were disporved decades ago, and go against everything we now know about animal behaviour, learning theory, etc. Some of his methods are simply ineffective, but be careful as others can be psychologically damaging to your dog and may put you at serious risk of being bitten.

As someone mentioned previously - no one can give you an accurate diagnosis of WHAT is causing your dogs behaviour, or advise you what to do about - without them a) being an expert and b) actually seeing the dog performing said behaviours.

I would definately suggest finding a professional (and humane) animal behaviourist.

But if you want some things to consider in the meantime....

There is nothing to suggest this behaviour is dominance related. It sounds to me more like anxiety - of strangers, being left etc.

Please avoid any physical corrections. If your dog learns to associate certain events (eg you saying bye on the phone, people waking by the house etc) with an unpleasent experience her behaviour will probably get worse.
It is like this. Dog is afraid of strangers. She reacts with frustration, aggression because she is afraid. So you punish the behaviour. Dog learns that actually she does have a damn good reason for fearing these things - so her anxiety is increased.

What you need to do is reduce her reacticity to these events that trigger her behaviour. If the behaviour is a fear response, this may involve systematic desensitisation, so that she learns to associate these events with something positive and overcome her fear.

Your suggestion about clicker training - NO! This won't work and will make your life more difficult. (Sorry!)

The clicker is a reward marker.
Dogs learn by association - cause and effect. If a behaviour gets rewarded it will be repeated. The better the timing, the better the training - as the easier it is for the dog to understand exactly which behaviour is being rewarded. Actually rewarding a dog at the correct moment is difficult if not impossible - there will always be a time delay. The clicker overcomes this problem. By pairing the click with the reward, you can remove this time delay. The dogs knows that click means reward - and it is far easier to click at the perfect moment.

The problem with what you suggested is this....

The dog learns that click = treat, so the click becoms a secondary reinforcer. (The primary reinforcer is the treat itself).
If you click your dog when she is behaving badly you are effectively REWARDING her for it!

In theory - what you could do is get her to perform a desired behaviour (eg sit), then click and reward. But do not try to distract her with the click - it may undo the clicker training (if not paired with the reward) making the clicker useless, or it may actually reinforce the bad behaviour.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, but really your best bet is to actually have someone round to see the behaviours in action. Hope this was some help though. Good luck!