Well, this weekend was good and bad with dog-family relations.
The bad: my dog is currently living at my BF's family's house because I'm finishing my last month of college and Rascal was getting way too stressed out living in this environment. This makes it very very difficult for me to "work with" the dog's issues, primarily fear aggression and guarding me. This weekend most of the family (including me) gathered back at the house for some big family festivities.
At one point my MIL came into my room while I was sleeping and brusquely opened the door and went to pick Rascal up. He freaked out (he had also been asleep), growling and barking and snapping. He does NOT like anyone messing with me while I'm not conscious, and trying to grab him quickly is just not a good idea. Fortunately MIL realized this and backed off, and Rascal was later very apologetic and ran up to her licking and making all sorts of submissive gestures, so they made friends again.
At another point I was in the bathroom, and my oughta-know-better SIL decided to "make friends" with Rascal by standing over him, bending over him, and yelling out, "HI RASCAL!" while waving her hands. He was freaked out and started growling, so she reached over to pick him up. (???) He bit her, this time hard. I was very pissed at all involved. (Who goes to pick up a growling dog??) I had previously warned her to be very gentle and slow-moving around him, since he was very timid and liable to be aggressive when frightened. (This after she thought it would be fun to scare him at Easter time by sneaking up behind him and going, "Boo!" while grabbing his butt.) I told her then that he WILL bite if he's frightened, and that she was really lucky he hadn't before. No wonder he's scared of her.
I was pretty depressed at this point, thinking maybe the dog is too much for me to handle right now, that maybe having him wait a month just isn't worth it, that I'm failing him as a doggy mother...
Then the good. After some careful preparations, we worked on Rascal's fear of the SIL a bit. I held his head and petted his shoulders while she petted his bottom (very slowly and gently) and he decided that this was okay. He's also now okay walking around her and sniffing her shoes.
The other issue we'd been having is Rascal being fearful/aggressive with my BF. This weekend it was great with those two! I asked BF to not growl at the dog, but he still wanted to make some sort of dog noises at Rascal, so we agreed he can go, "Woo woo woo." Now instead of being freaked out, Rascal just looks at him like, "WTF? Uh, okay, dude." Also, instead of playing the "step on Rascal game" where BF pretends like he's going to step on him, BF played the "slide the feet on the ground" game, which Rascal enjoyed. (It's one foot, now it's the other, oh man they're both moving at the same time!!! run run run.)
BF and Rascal also had some great games of chase and toy-throwing, and BF took Rascal for a walk while I took BF's family's dog for a walk. All went very nicely.
Finally, a little bit before we were leaving to go back to school, BF and I were sitting on different chairs in the living room. I called Rascal to come over to me and jump up on my lap. He comes over to me, looks at me, and then goes and jumps on BF's lap. BF thought this was the greatest thing ever ("He likes me more than you!!! I win!"
;), and I was super happy to see them getting along so well.
So we have a long way to go (minimizing exposure to crazy stupid people will help!), but little by little we are making progress.
For anyone who made it all the way through this rambling, thanks. I just needed to vent a bit.