Extremely Shy Sheltie

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kathyl

Forums Regular
We adopted a 2yr old female about a month ago. Renamed her Sadie Mae (Princess of Mercy). Old name meant idiot, nitwit.

Was raised in outside dog pen w/6 other shelties entire life/taken from mama 4wks old. Is the shyest animal I've ever seen. Stayed in dog kennel in other room 1st week (w/door open so she could see us but wouldn't come out of kennel).

Does like to be petted & we even started letting her sleep in our bed (w/Maltese & us). She does like that & will interact there more than anywhere w/us.
Still circles furniture if we're in living room,goes outside & to bottom of fenced yard. I have to go get her every time. This has to change. How do we get her to trust & teach her to come to us.

No social skills, never had leash/collar on. She's a sweetheart & does wag her tail now @ me but we need some training on how to train her. Thanks guys.
 
Yes time and patience-what is the hurry ? No gain there. Already loving you in bed so that is GREAT. Having a yard to roam in and humans to interact with are all new...put yourself in her place. She just doesn't know that she can trust you yet and that can't be rushed-she controls that. Tinsel's Journey is just what you need to read and follow.It is so wonderful that you rescued her !!!
 
Thank you for taking the time and effort to adopt this sweet dog. Psychologically, she has a lot of the same problems that most puppy mill rescues have. And I applaud the name change - new life, new name!

The key to understanding her is to realize that EVERYTHING indoors is completely foreign to her. And sometimes the unfamiliar can be extremely scary. It takes a great deal of love and time. Don't give up on her - she has her own time line for acquiring the confidence it will take for her to become what I call "a real dog".

You've made excellent progress with her already, believe it or not. I have a puppy mill rescue that I adopted in 2011, and the very first place she was comfortable enough to interact with me was on the bed.

The circling or pacing around furniture is a common thing among rescues. My Bela still paces in the living room, which has a vaulted ceiling. In other rooms she is OK now.

Make sure her crate (her safe spot) is always open so she can take refuge when she's had too much. It's great that you are letting her sleep with you. I feel that these human love-deprived dogs need some pretty intense closeness to their new human pack members. (I was lucky to be able to spend almost 24/7 with Bela for the first year.) As she gains confidence (and you'll be able to tell), keep exposing her to more new things a little at a time. As she gains trust in you, she'll continue to improve.

Unfortunately, there is no way to speed up the process. Every dog is different. It took Bela eight months to even bark or wag her tail, and she just started flashing that big Sheltie smile and running at the dog park in the last couple of months.

Good luck to you! You've made a big difference in the life of this dog. If you need any advice or help, please let us know. There are people here who have rehabbed more than one rescue dog, and others who are a little bit further along the rescue path than you are. They may have lots of suggestions that I haven't thought of.

As far as training is concerned, as soon as she gets more acclimated to her new forever home, a basic obedience class is in order. Shelties are smart little critters and pick up things quickly. If you are in an urban area, both Petsmart and Petco offer basic beginner classes. Some parks departments also offer them. If none of those work, let us here on Sheltie Nation know, and we'll put our heads together and see if we can't come up with a good trainer for you.









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As the "mom" of a rescue dog, I send love and encouragement to you and ditto to all that was said above. Please take the time to read about Tinsel and Bela-reading about those two and what they went through helped me tremendously, especially in those first 6 months when it seemed there was never going to be growth. It takes superhuman patience but the payoff is huge when the wheels start to turn in their brains, and their hearts learn to trust you. You can't make her first two years go away, and neither can she, and hurrying the process won't work. There were times I would erase weeks of work with George in just one impatient move, and bam, he went backward in trust. You have begun a long and sometimes frustrating journey but she is already responding to you--but the next steps may be few and far between for a while. Then, what seems suddenly, she will make big steps. Enjoy those times, and hang in for the rest! George will start to pace and we gently pick him up and sooth him; just some of the old nerves coming back once in a while. But for the first almost year, he ran every time I reached down to pick him up. Now, well, he seeks me out for picking up, and loving, and snuggling. It comes at their speed.
God bless you and you come back here as you need to get help and encouragement. The lovely people on here have held my hand and heart through some rough times with a puppy who died, and then working with George the last 1 and 1/2 years.
 
First, remember that the crate is a safe area for your dog. While frustrating for us while we wait for them to come out they need to gather all of their courage to take the plunge. It took Tinsel months to willingly come out as soon as I opened the door and still I can't just stand there but must turn and walk away or he will stay put. As for leash walking, he didn't struggle, he just laid down. You are dealing with an emotional response which can't be trained out of your dog any more than you can train yourself to not run if you see a man pointing a gun. Trust comes slowly. I also had to carry him in and out of the house for a long time. He got better at coming in but the going out.....that took a long time too.
Fearful dogs aren't incapable of learning but have learned how not to learn. They gave up trying to control their lives so we need to slowly reteach them that they can take back some control. May I suggest that you join Fearfuldog.com. It will give you a lot of insight into the workings of a dog with these kinds of backgrounds.
I also kept a journal. When things seemed like they weren't moving forward I could read from the beginning and see how far he had come. It helped me to remain focussed on his needs instead of mine. It's a year later and Tin went for a walk down a fairly busy street Saturday afternoon last weekend. He was able to pause and smell the places that other dogs had visited, not shy away from people coming the other way and accept treats during all the commotion. He still needs to make the decision to allow someone to touch him other than me and usually my hubby but will take goodies from them willingly. We all think that giving these dogs a warm, loving place and good food will make them feel safe but they have large hurdles to overcome that take our patience, guidance and understanding. If I can help at all please don't hesitate to PM me.
Joanne
 
Your dog sounds like my six month old sheltie when we got her! It was very difficult to get her to "come", because all she wanted to do was run in the other direction. We had to keep her leash wrapped around our wrist because any sound would scare her so much she would try to run.

But! With a lot of persistence and patience, we finally started to see a big difference in her after being with us for six months. She is now 14 months, and she will come when called, and is very affectionate with myself and my husband. She was always gotten along well with my other sheltie, and does great with other dogs. We even off leash her at the dog park, and her recall is fabulous.

One of the things that really helped her bond with us was that I fed her completely out of my hand for about two weeks. It was after I started doing this that I noticed when she got scared, she would run toward me, not away from me.

She is still not as comfortable with other people outside of her family, and we still have work to do, but she has certainly come a long way from the puppy we brought home from the kennel!

I am positive your sheltie will come around too.
 
I had ajax for about 6months now, he only trusts about 4 people since. He's also very noise reactive, not at home but when I take him out for walks etc. He also hates stranger giving him any kind of attention, just eye contact already freaks him out let alone some people just come up and talk to him.

I'm not sure how much of this shyness I can train out of him, but like the others said you really cant push them. They need to go at their own pace. I don't think Ajax will ever be as sociable as alfie, but hopefully with time he will become more of a dog than a cat lol

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25665754@N05/8211332514/ Ajax says hi to Sadie mae :)
 
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