Settling in a rehomed dog

[chloe28]

I recently adopted a 4 year old mini from a breeder and was somewhat misled about how socialised she was. Basically she has never lived inside except when she was in a crate, is terrified of people, not house trained for poops and not leash trained. I can see she has a lovely personality under all the fear but I am wondering how long it will take before she starts to show any sign of happiness. She will sometimes follow me around the house but is very fearful of anyone else going near her and if I need to move her for some reason I usually have to carry her. She won't eat if anyone is around or come in from outside if anyone is watching. I don't push her to come to me or force affection on her, just talk normally and ignore her when she is being really nervous. She has free access to the back garden most of the time but she still poops secretly in corners - I have never been able to actually see her do it. I would love to be able to take her for walks and do normal dog things but I am worried she will never really trust us enough to be a loving, happy dog. Any advice would be really welcome.

[redalert]

Hi, although my situation is not the same as yours, I had my 2nd little girl at 6 months old, she was the runt of the litter and not expected to survive so although she lived in the house, she spent a lot of time on her own and she was not well socialised with people or other dogs. She is now almost 3, and still very nervous of people, situations noises etc. The vacuum terrifies her, I have to vacuum when she is out of the house or she scuttles around and hides, any loud noises, raised voices frighten her, and yet she isn't frightened of thunder and lightening! She does go to day care every day, and loves the interaction with other dogs but is very submissive, once she has got used to the people she is fine with them but she is rather wary of men, she is quite frightened of my husband but he lives away all week so is only at home over the weekend, she is terrified of my eldest son, but loves my youngest son. She does have "Bowen" regularly and that does relax her, so maybe you could try something like that for her, initially she was very frightened of the treatment but now she loves it. I did have a behaviourist come to see her, but that wasn't very successful, she was frightened of the chap! Speaking to her in a normal way is good, it shows her that there is nothing to be worried about and ignoring her when she is frightened is the best way to deal with the situation, so I have been told. As regards toilet training, walking on the leash, I cannot help you on that, Bo was very easy to train regarding this as she had 3 other dogs to learn from which helps enormously. I wish you the very best of luck with your little girl and I am sure lots of other people will be able to help you regarding your issues

[BeeBee]

This is sad for you and her that you've been given the wrong information about her previous life and how this has damaged her. She will get to be a normal dog, or relatively normal I am sure, but it is going to take a long time and she will only be able to do it at her pace. Do you have another dog? That helps so much, but if not, you can still help her. Her behaviour is typical of a dog from the breeding industry, which includes puppy farming, but is not restricted to it.
Have a read of this link, it has excellent advice that you might find helpful.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/susie-be ... 8885934408

House training her will take time, but think of it as you would a puppy and do the basics and repeat and repeat and in time, she'll learn this. What is your previous experience with dogs?

Like-wise, teaching her to walk on the lead, it will come, but will take a lot of patience and without another dog, it will be harder as she won't have that example to follow. But, getting her used to the outside world in quiet, calm places to start with, letting her use her senses in her own time will help.

If you haven't already, it will help to have a small crate which is left open so she can come and go, but she can learn to use it as her "safe place" and let her be there as much as she needs to be. She mustn't be taken out of it by anything remotely like force. If you consider she has to learn literally everything that now happens is nice and not scary and living in a home with humans is good. But, it's going to take time.

You have a long road ahead with her, but with commitment, patience and learning a bit more about why she is as she is will help you.
It may help if you could get some Pet Remedy spray, and/or diffuser (http://www.petremedy.co.uk/ ) it is different to other calming products in as much as it's essential oil based which have proven effects. It will help to take the edge off her anxiety so she can start to focus on other things, like living in a home, getting used to you. What is your home set-up? Have you others in the house, do you work?

[GaryThomlinson]

Reading things like this make me feel so sad. But if anyone knows how to help, BeeBee does.

[Morgana99]

Hello & welcome
I feel for you & your mini. Unfortunately there are no definite answers to most of your questions, as it will depend on how ingrained the effects of the former life are & this can also vary depending on the disposition of the individual dog. For me, the important thing is to accept that changes are possible, but will take time & a lot of patience. Success in all you hope for is not guaranteed.
However frustrating you may find your mini's progress (or lack of), it is so important to try not to get angry or let your frustration come through to the dog. I know from experience this can be very challenging, but always try to bear in mind it isn't their fault they have learned to behave in a particular way. This would apply to situations like toileting. Do go back to basics & try not to react if she takes a while to respond.
Also, don't try to do everything on your own. It will help if you have other dogs in the family or if you have friends with well balanced, quiet, friendly dogs you can walk/socialise with regularly. From what you say, going to a training class would be far too much for her, so maybe some personal training from a qualified professional would help, especially in the early days, to get some suitable rechniques to work with.

It's easy for me to say this, but it is with some degree of hindsight. My Elsie was a rescue at 18 months. The family who bought her as a puppy initially had her as part of the family, apparently other children and farm dogs. Then, something seemed to happen and from a young age, she was placed in isolation, kept on her own out in a shed and finally left with a boarding kennels, when they failed to pick her up after a holiday. The kennel owner was concerned because of her physical and mental condition. She found out the breeder's details somehow and alerted them. The breeder drove over a hundred miles to rescue her back, together with a friend of mine who had got her dog from this same breeder. My friend then drove out to my house at 10.30pm because I had recently moved and didn't have a phone, to ask if I'd consider taking her in. Despite shouts from the other room that we were definitely not having another dog (we already had two), I agreed to go & see her the next day . The rest is history.
However, it was not an easy ride. I very naively thought love & TLC would turn things round very quickly, but this doesn't happen in the case of really traumatised dogs who have been systematically physically & mentally abused over an extended period of time.
Elsie did integrate into our pack but she remained very noise sensitive, was always dreadful in the car and reacted with fear aggression if we ever challenged her too far - this was a learning curve for us too and we developed different ways of avoiding such situations over the years. However, things like trips to the vet, were stressful. We had to be very careful if we ever let her off lead, she was fine in familiar places, but even there, if there was a noise, she would bolt for home, no matter if there were busy roads in between. She never learned how to play, but she would accept affection, on her terms so long as nothing was forced.
Life with my girl was often confusing and frustrating for us, but I like to think she found a level of happiness and security. For her sake, it would have been wonderful if we could have overcome all her foibles, but I think even if we had been more knowledgeable, too much damage had been done.
Elsie was a special character and left us at age 13 with a lot of happy & rewarding memories
Hopefully you will have real success with your mini (Chloe?) & receive lots of advice on any questions you have now and in future

[BeeBee]

What a brilliant post Alison, made me quite teary as of course I can relate to so much of it
I think one of the things that is emotionally hard for me, us as humans, is we cannot comfort traumatised dogs in ways that they find comforting as they can't always recognise this as such; that's particularly the case when a dog has lived in isolation or away from humans, which is often the case with breeding dogs.

[Morgana99]

What a brilliant post Alison, made me quite teary as of course I can relate to so much of it
I think one of the things that is emotionally hard for me, us as humans, is we cannot comfort traumatised dogs in ways that they find comforting as they can't always recognise this as such; that's particularly the case when a dog has lived in isolation or away from humans, which is often the case with breeding dogs.

I know exactly what you mean & I can't begin to say what I think of people who treat animals in this way

[redalert]

Just had a thought, have you thought of getting a Thundershirt and an Adaptil plug in or collar, both work for Bo?

[carolinh]

Hi,
Both of ours came from a breeder, several years apart, both at approx 5 years of age. I think both had similar backgrounds to yours.
Daisy was our first dog, and took about 5 minutes to settle in -we were so lucky!.

May is also a lovely dog (me biased ? surely not). She also has a more nervous disposition, and for the first 6 months she was scared of a lot of things (including wheely bins and the elvis statue on the high street) She also had a delicate stomach - we wondered if it was change of food, but think now that it was probably nerves. After 6 months, she started to settle a bit, and after a year she was a much smilier happier dog. we have now had her for 18 months, and although she is still a bit scared of some things (not helped by a dog attack this summer, which set her back a bit), but she has turned into a happy, sometimes bouncy dog, although sometimes she enjoys her own company. Just a different personality, I guess.

Only today we had another first - I'm a gardener, and was lunching in the car (as normal) with my colleague, and Daisy decided she wanted affection, and decided to sit on my colleagues lap- a regular occurrence. But today, May decided to sit on him too. I was really pleased as she has not done that before....and luckily he doesn't mind either.

As everyone says, it takes time but it is so rewarding. We have tried to let May do things in her own time...as a measure of progress, I could probably walk them on one of those 'splitter' leads now - which was completely impossible when we got her. We did also take Daisy to puppy class when we got her, which was useful (more for us than her really)

So, best of luck, take it gently and you will get there. There are people on here who are real experts (which I cannot claim to be !), and I think some have already replied.

Cheers

Caroline

[BeeBee]

Any advice would be really welcome.

Any news? How are you getting on?