My black lab appears to almost attack a person when the person coughs or sneezes. The dog hears the cough/sneeze, and then immediately barks and goes towards the person in an aggressive kind of fashion. Once at the person, the dog looks directly at the person but doesn't actually attack them in a physical way. Then if you pet them and say it is ok, the dog either stays for the petting or goes about his way. To someone new, this can be seen as a scary situation, but once it is learned then it is understandable.
The secondary problem with this is that everyone around tries to not cough or sneeze. it can be very distracting during get togethers. We do not know if this was a trained response by a previous owner as we got him from the humane society and they do not have any history on the dog. Other than this response, he is an extremely nice, loving dog.
What can or should we do about this behavior? Can it be untrained or trained to a different response?
