Well as i am now a member of this forum i might as well give a little background history to barley ( the one in my avatar)
He is a rescue, but not from a rescue center, he was rescued from a farm at supposedly 3 months old, he was skinny, undernourished, he had had no human contact, he had never seen a lead before, he had never worn a collar, he had never been in a car, he was very nervous and scared of everything. Being in a home was all new to him, seeing people was new to him. the first few days days were terrible, he spent most of this time outside as he was too scared to come inside, he refused to eat anything. By the end of his first week with us he started to come out of his shell a bit, he gained more confidence in approaching people after he realized that they had nice stuff like roast chicken and bacon, he had also started to eat his food but he was a grazer, and he preferred to eat at night. During his second week with us he went to the vet for his first set of jabs and to find out that he was around 9-12 months old as he had all of his adult teeth, he spent the whole time at the vets with his tail between his legs, he hated it. After a month of him being with us, he had had both sets of jabs, and he was ready to go for walks. Barley had other ideas about this, he was to scared to go out of the front door, it took him over a month to get out of the front door and as far as the end of our driveway. It then took him another couple of weeks to gain enough confidence to go for walks.
Through all of this he started showing his true self, he was very stubborn and very nervous. I had to train him myself as he could not handle dog training classes. he was a quick learner, clicker training helped a lot. by the end of his first year with us he had turned into a wonderful dog, despite all of his issues including being aggressive over food, running off when off lead, various health issues, nervous of people, unsure of unfamiliar dogs sometimes being aggressive and fearful of new and unfamiliar things.
He has been to discover dogs in london twice because of scruffts as he qualified for the semi-final, he has also been to crufts in birmingham for the final this year. Mine and his photos are still being used to advertise scruffts even though he did not win. http://www.crufts.org.uk/scruffts. http://www.crufts.org.uk/special-competitions. He has over 70 rosettes and 3 trophy's to his name,he has been in over 20 magazines or newspaper articles. He has done so well to get where he is now. He does have his moment now and then, but that is understandable. From what he was like when we first got him to what he is like now is amazing. There were times when we thought about giving up on him and giving him to a rescue center, but we didn't we kept at it and he has turned into a great dog.