Actual progress with Sid today! After coming inside with the kiddos this morning, he hung within a foot of me for about 10 minutes. The first 5 or so I was focused on the other dogs but then he actually seemed to want to be petted – a first! In the past, he’s allowed me to pet him but always seemed like he endured it, never welcomed it. This time he not only invited it, he actually seemed to allow himself to enjoy it a bit….hooray!
Sid’s Story
Sid had been transferred to LPCHS months ago. Adopted quickly, he went to live with a couple in Silverton but after a month he was returned. Sid was an extremely shut-down dog. Something that wasn’t as apparently in the shelter due to his love of other dogs. But when he went to live with people – and no other dogs – it was too much for him and he ‘went to ground’ so to speak. He divided his time between the outdoors and his crate, never engaging with the people or seemingly to relax.
He came to live with me and my pack of kiddos here in mid-October. For the first two weeks I let him do the same thing he did at the other house….ignore me and live between the crate and a tie-out. Although he was calmer around my kiddos he never seemed to relax during those first few weeks.
After that a couple of things happened at the same time. A dog came over that he loved and he played with her like a puppy. Around the same time, he got outside through the cat window. He was still uncomfortable approaching humans so he refused to come inside and ended up spending the night outside. The next morning, he scooted in the house quickly (under the feet of the other dogs).
Knowing his fear of humans but wanting to respect his need for independence (and distance from me) I began treating him more like a scared cat then a dog; knowing his general whereabouts but never pressuring him with attention or petting. Well, I petted him a bit here and there but for the most part just let him do his thing. It has been a full month till this morning when he actually seemed to ask to be petted.
Long term prognosis
This is such a judgement call. The fact that he approached me this morning (after 6 weeks) is great but doesn’t give me a lot of hope that he’ll ever be completely comfortable around humans. My experience with older dogs who have been traumatized is that they may end up trusting one person….but if that one person doesn’t work out…it takes a lot (if it’s even possible) to ever re-form another human bond.
And of course, every dog is different and we have no idea what happened to him to make him so fearful. After two weeks with Sid my recommendation back to the shelter (I fostered him to provide them with an Assessment) was that his quality of life would really suffer if he was rehomed. Best case scenario was finding a dog that he bonds to and let him just follow that dog around with the hope that he eventually trusts at least his human. Bottom line was that he really needed (balanced) dogs in his life and someone who would just let him be but rehoming him again could cause him a major setback. So for the time being he’ll stay here and we’ll see if we (me and the kiddos) can get him to come out of his shell.
