Shy dogs and Time

Liesje

I don't know if she was already shy and skittish at this point, but one day she was with the husband, heard a loud noise, spooked, and ran off.  After that she did not trust him

A master at pointing the obvious, am I. But there it is. She identified that scary stimulus with men. She generalized to all men, all on her own. When she approaches DH without his direct interaction, she is trying to re-investigate. I would let her re-condition herself, with just a little help. Pretty much, DH is going to have to let her re-acclimate to men at her own pace, not a human's pace. And he could help by having treats or other good stuff that she likes that magically appear or drop on the flloor when she approaches and initiates contact. I think she has to learn the confidence to be near a man again. If the first man spent too much time coddling and accidently rewarding the fear response, she may assume that the fear response is how she is to get attention from a man. IMHO.

Ron, I totally agree, but I do believe that her puppyhood and maybe her temperament as a whole have to play some part.  I mean, a lot of dogs hear loud noises and don't think twice of it.

Our problem with letting her come around is that it's really really hard to consistently ignore your own dog (speaking for my husband).  It's hard to get through even a single day where you are conscious of not *looking* at her, not *touching* her, not *speaking* to her, and not making ANY noise or gesture that MIGHT startle her.  We live in a very small rental and my husband's a big guy.  There's only so much I can ask from him as far as literally tip-toeing around his own home all day every day.  I think deep down I know that's probably the best solution, but it's just not practical, especially when he is the one who is home and has to walk her and take her out to potty.  If he really did ignore her and let her initiate all interaction, she would be under-exercised and not be able to potty for 8 hours.  I've also mentioned to him to keep treats on hand, but again, we have another dog who is a champion at counter surfing and actually ripping our pockets apart to get at a forgotten treat, plus three cats who WILL eat dog treats and WILL vomit them all over my carpet.  When we are training or when we do have treats on hand, he is pretty good about always giving her a treat for ANY sort of interacting with him.  Even if she disobeys me by not listening and going to sniff DH, she gets a treat. 

Kim_MacMillan

Handfeeding is a great bonding experience, if the dog is comfortable taking food from him.

If you're okay with it, and he's okay with it, and most importantly SHE is okay with it, I would use her meals (or part of it, since if she eats kibble being a GSD she likely eats quite a bit...lol), have him sit on the floor, and just feed her part of her meals, kibble by kibble, by hand. I wouldn't have him ask her to do anything whatsoever. Obedience is not the goal here, trust is. I would actually let her do anything she wanted as long as it was mannerly.

Has he tried clicker teaching her himself? Will she work for him at all? What if he taught her some really easy game? Clicker teaching is a bonding experience as well, and it contains classical conditioning properties as much as it does operant conditioning for tricks. Does he know how to use a clicker?

As I recommended to someone else recently, you could also teach her to "Go Visit", on cue. That can help to build trust and confidence, as going to "see" somebody becomes fun and games, rather than something frightening. If she's ready for it, you could try that as well.

And it's really actually a myth to believe that all fearful/shy dogs are the result of being abused or mishandled in some manner. Most people don't believe that anymore, as there are sooooooooo many reasons that dogs come to be the way that they are, abuse is only one of them, and thankfully the minority when it comes to shy/fearful dogs.

Thanks, Kim, maybe we can try handfeeding again now that we are both usually home around dinner time.  She will not eat straight up kibble from him, I can tell you that without trying.  If it spice it up a bit, it will probably work, but I will have to be standing there.  If I am somewhere else, she won't stay with him.  When I was gone for a weekend she didn't eat a single full meal, and he wasn't even hand feeding it to her then (put it in her crate like usual and left her alone).

He sometimes tries basic commands with her.  Again, it works for a period of time as long as I'm standing right there, not offering her a more comfortable alternative.  I've explained the clicker to him, but honestly, neither of us have used it much with Kenya because she picks up on things so fast there hasn't many many things I've really had to shape or backchain with a clicker. 

I like the idea of teaching the "go visit" as a command.  I've done some "click to calm" things with her in stressful situations and it seems that as long as my timing is right, doing simple obedience work does block some of that stress and skittishness.  I've also noticed that often when she meets strangers, the initial greeting is fine and normal, but if it lingers, she becomes more and more suspicious of the person.  Tomorrow we have training class so I'll see if some volunteers can help me.  We've been working on sending our dogs to/around objects so maybe this will be a good transition, sending her to someone to get a treat and then come back...oh look, nothing bad happened! 

And I agree with the last statement.  Kenya was NOT abused or neglected at ALL.  In fact, she was raised from birth by someone who specializes in puppy socialization and who has her own training club based entirely on operant conditioning and positive reinforcement.  Now Coke, my other dog, WAS neglected and probably hit on the head (b/c he ducks when we pet him) and yet he's very secure, confident, and social.

I know my husband went thru a period where he would just come home, say "hi", no touching or anything and then just go about his business.  He didn't walk around on egg shells or anything like that.  He did his usual routine and almost pretended like she wasn't there.  Then when it was time he'd take her out and at one point he was giving her dinner.  I eventually ended up just having him give her a snack because even that she sometimes doesn't eat until I get in.  But, maybe just having him ignore would work for her. 

I do see your point. There are some logistical difficulties. And she may either respond to re-conditioning, or she won't. She may have a personality that is simply a bit leery of men. She may be a one-time learner, in that she bonded with you, first and strongest. Everyone else is a distant second, ala an Akita. Or, it's DH's aftershave or soap.

Tonight was good.  I introduced the "go visit" thing Kim suggested.  We started with just DH, and I moved farther and farther away.  My friend who also has a GSD brought her DH to class, so after class I did some attention work with Kenya right in front of him, and when I was confident, I let him start to pet her and give her treats and she did good.  She also did really good when it was our turn.  Sometimes she is really distracted by DH, always turning around to see if he's watching or if he's too close to her.  Tonight she didn't seem to care.  She also played well after class (we let all the "good" dogs off lead and throw in a bunch of toys).