Mac os x dock problems

hey guys i have a problem with my dock i have it on hiding and sometimes when i try to bring the dock up to click on an icon it wont come up on the screen so i have to turn the hiding off to get my icons and i have to restart my computer to get the hiding to work?? why is that

NOTE: Nothing to do with Macbook hardware. Moving to proper software forum.

this happened to me all the time when i hid the dock. it just froze. i have since stopped hiding my dock. but instead of restarting your computer. opening the terminal (applications>utilities) and typing (or copy/paste)

killall Dock

and it will reset your dock

You don't need to open terminal or restart the computer. Logging in and out should do it.
You could also use Command + Option + Esc and then restart Finder.

so how do i restart finder?? sorry im new to macs do force quit on finder?? is that it plus im using tiger instead of lepard