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About 3 weeks ago, my parents adopted a dog from some podunk town in Missouri. She's about 9 months old and is a mix between a cocker spaniel and some other breed that escapes me for now. I've been over at their place about a half dozen times for the sole purpose of trying to get her acclimated to me because I take care of their dogs (they have 2 others) when they leave town.

Now I've seen dogs that are skittish around strangers, but this is just a whole other level of fear. The moment I step into their door, she breaks loose with hellacious barking and growling until either my mom or dad picks her up. The last time I was there she literally pissed all over my dad when I tried to get a little closer to pet her. They leave for Florida at the end of the month and there's just now way this dog is going to warmup to me by then. In fact, I don't see her ever acting normal around me. And it's just me she has a problem with. I'm not quite sure why it bugs me to the extent it does, but it's just a given that I can't be around the dog for more than a few minutes before I just have to leave because I don't wanna scare her anymore.

I theorize that she was beaten by someone who looks like me. That's the only thing that I can come up with.

Wear a mask.

Tambourine Man wrote:About 3 weeks ago, my parents adopted a dog from some podunk town in Missouri. She's about 9 months old and is a mix between a cocker spaniel and some other breed that escapes me for now. I've been over at their place about a half dozen times for the sole purpose of trying to get her acclimated to me because I take care of their dogs (they have 2 others) when they leave town.

Now I've seen dogs that are skittish around strangers, but this is just a whole other level of fear. The moment I step into their door, she breaks loose with hellacious barking and growling until either my mom or dad picks her up. The last time I was there she literally pissed all over my dad when I tried to get a little closer to pet her. They leave for Florida at the end of the month and there's just now way this dog is going to warmup to me by then. In fact, I don't see her ever acting normal around me. And it's just me she has a problem with. I'm not quite sure why it bugs me to the extent it does, but it's just a given that I can't be around the dog for more than a few minutes before I just have to leave because I don't wanna scare her anymore.

I theorize that she was beaten by someone who looks like me. That's the only thing that I can come up with.

load up with ham, turkey and hotdogs and see if that helps..
seriously.. give her enough good stuff and maybe hopefully she'll
learn how to trust you..

I agree...it does sound like you remind her of someone who mistreated her. This will sound weird, but I'll toss it out there since dogs know their owner's scent: Have you tried wearing one of your dad's shirts when you visit her? I'm just guessing, but if she associates you with her owner's scent, she may adjust. When we first brought our dog over from Germany, if we had to leave him with friends for a few days, we'd always leave one of my hubby's tshirts, it made our dog feel more comfortable with his surroundings. It may not work in your situation, but worth a shot. They may just have to board her somewhere......

Stop stumbling in drunk on Jagermeister, grabbing the dog, and petting her really hard saying, "SUCH A PRETTY DOG YOU ARE...SUCH A PRETTY DOG YOU ARE...SUCH A PRETTY DOG YOU ARE..."

...she might warm up to you then...oh yeah...put down the butcher knife too.

Tambourine Man wrote:I theorize that she was beaten by someone who looks like me. That's the only thing that I can come up with.

More likely, someone who smells like you. I'd give Omaha's idea a try.

thrill wrote:

Tambourine Man wrote:I theorize that she was beaten by someone who looks like me. That's the only thing that I can come up with.

More likely, someone who smells like you. I'd give Omaha's idea a try.

I'd suggest a combination of Omaha's and Simba's.

But yeah, put down the butcher knife.

Dogs are often very good judges of character, and will reject those of low degree.

Not that I'm an expert, but I am working with a dog now that is very skittish.

Try laying in the floor and petting the other dogs, which might help the new dog feel a bit of jealousy. Also, you won't be towering over him, which can make him feel threatened. This will give the new dog a change to come close to you and steal a sniff or two, and may even allow a bit of petting. If you do pet, don't try to put your hand on top of his head, which can feel controlling to the dog. Just scratch under the chin and jowls.

We have had two major behaviour problems with dogs that resulted in us giving them up. The first was an adopted dog, a 2 year old lab/retriever mixed that was found on a highway. We are certain she was badly abused, we had her for a year before we ended up giving her back to the shelter. She had too sweet of a personality to put down, so had the shelter not agreed to take her back we would have kept her. But the destruction was too much, we couldn't housebreak her because she was intolerant to a raised voice. Any raised voice, even a loud laugh, would send her cowering in a corner making puddles. Unless she was outside - in which case a loud noise would send her running away. We had construction going on in the area and the trucks were too much for her, I have no idea how many hours we spent looking for her. Our house backed to a cornfield and a couple of times in the summer we thought she was going to get lost and die in there.

Dog #2 was a Cocker Spaniel, and I didn't do my homework on the breed. They can be a very snippy and tightly would breed. We got one, long story short I spent over $500 training the dog but through some fear he could not resist biting children. Normally it was the neighbor kids he terrorized, when he turned on my own kid we took a little visit to the vet for a very long nap. We had been consulting with the trainer and vet on this, it wasn't a rash decision, but basically the dog was not going to change it's personality and it was not a match for our house.

The moral of the story is sometimes dogs have issues that just can't be reasonably dealt with.