One thing that is very important while helping your Doberman puppy through this is "DO NOT BABY HIM" If you are telling your cute little puppy which comes very natural to us humans "It's okay" in a consoling voice and petting him you are encouraging his behavior. One thing you need to stop right away is taking him to the dog park. This may be done later but you are making it worse at this time. This is not a place to take a frightened puppy to socialize. You can go to petco, petsmart, parks (without loose running dogs), outside grocery stores, strip malls that type of thing. Here is what I do to build confidence in my puppies if they act cautious or afraid of things. As soon as they raise any hair or growl or step behind me I will tell them in a happy confident voice "You are soo silly lets go see" and we march right over there to investigate. The whole time I will be talking to them in that same confident voice telling them what a good go see. Your so silly! I'm going to include a link to a very important article that goes through different stages up puppy hood and what to do to make the best Doberman possible. Puppies naturally go through what is referred to as a fear period this is usually between the 4th to 7th month. Your puppy is smack dab in the middle of this. In the article it will give you practical suggestions on how to handle this the right way. The link is http://www.dpca.org/BreedEd/superpuppy.htm keep us updated. Good luck

While I'm not a huge fan of dog parks they do work for some people and some breeds. I think basically people take it WAY to fast and expect a young puppy to feel comfortable around a bunch of dogs in group settings, when in fact it is terribly frightening to them. People themselves can not correctly read the body language that a group of dogs loose in a dog park are doing but yet expect puppies to handle it. The key is not to push to fast. Dog parks happen to be the very last place if ever a dog should be taken to for socialization. If you think about it, what is the very first thing that happens when a new dog walks through the gates of a dog park? Those that are paying attention or near the gate are going to come running up to smell surrounding the new comer, it only goes to say that this can be extremely intimidating. Does this mean you should not socialize your dog? absolutely not. This means you are going way to fast to soon and not taking the appropriate steps inbetween. Correct socialization does not begin at 6 mo it starts from birth and continues on through the life of a dog. Again I will post a fantastic article that should be taken in consideration it is called Super dogs are made not born http://www.dpca.org/BreedEd/superpuppy.htm enjoy.