barking at people walking into her "territory"

So my sheepdog is friendly as can be. If you aren't intruding on her space. I share a backyard with 6 other houses. When I let her out in the backyard, which she now sees as hers, and a neighbor walks into the yard, she runs up to them, plants herself just a few feet away and barks very loudly at them. This of course, scares people. Once she has gotten a few big barks in, she will happily come back when i call, but not before then unless I can get in front of her before she approaches them so she sees me and stops (which is hard to do, it all happens so fast). The same thing happens at a dog park when a human walks into the dog park. after being big and scary towards them, she is happy to let them in and pet her, but not until shes had her say first. In any other situation she is fine - meeting strangers on the street or anywhere else she is happy and loves to sniff and be pet by them.

My current solution is to not let her out in the yard without a leash on, but that just seems to be avoiding the problem instead of fixing it. Any ideas on how I could train her to no longer do this?

Thanks so much for your help!

Respond to this topic here on forum.oes.org

That's a toughy! Maybe experience with Great Pyrs will help: When they first come here they are walked around the perimeter of the yard, on leash several times a day. This is telling them this is the boundary line, don't cross it. Of course having a wire fence there helps. That doesn't mean an adventuresome one didn't dig out a time for two, but generally they caught on quickly, "this is my territory."

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