Love me! Damn it!

Our newest foster, Sidney, is a very nice boy. He gets along with all the other dogs, he's good indoors, he will crate at night without any problem. The only trouble I've had with him is that he's scared of me, particularly when it's time to come in at night. 

Wednesday I kept him in most of the day so he'd get used to me and he laid on a bed in the office while I worked for most of the day. I decided to give him some outdoor time in Daneland in the afternoon along with River and Declan. I fed them all out there and of course it was dark when I tried to bring them back inside. I just opened the gate and let them out loose, hoping that Sidney would just follow River and Declan to the back door. He did, to a point, but he wouldn't come in with them. I even tried walking away from the door, but if he stuck his head in and saw me, he'd turn around and go back out.

I hassled with this for over an hour. I'd send the other dogs back out with him, hoping he'd come back in with them. No. I walked away and left the door wide open for far longer than I wanted to on a winter night. No. I tried getting him in the van. No. I finally got him back into the dog yard with Max and left them for a while. I tried again later but couldn't get close enough to get a leash on him. It became increasingly difficult for me to maintain a cheery tone of voice while calling him nasty names in the nicest way possible. 

I finally found some treats that were apparently really good. He would take them from me outside but was quick to back off if I reached for him. I got him near the open door with the treats. I went inside. Maya, River, and Max were with me in the kitchen as I was tossing treats all around them on the floor. I threw some in the direction of the open door. Sidney finally stuck his head in, and then reached in to grab what he could. Eventually he got enough of his body inside that I could slam the door shut pushing him in rather than back out. 

Dogs who are scared of me try my patience. And this was particularly exasperating because he's fine with me indoors, but he just won't come through an open doorway with me present. My go-to technique for getting a dog to trust me is to hike with them. That leash builds trust. So that's what we did this afternoon.

I took Maya along to model good walking behavior since I didn't know how Sidney would be on a leash. He never pulled me at all, but when we started out he was walking back and forth in front of me, bumping into me or I was bumping into him or kicking the backs of his heels because he wasn't far enough out in front. When a new dog is walking like that Maya usually drops back behind to be out of the way. That's exactly what she did and he finally settled on a walking position, just to my left, which was pretty close to perfect. As I said, he didn't pull at all and he would keep walking, not stopping to sniff or pee like many dogs do. 

We had a nice two mile walk and I got the impression that he knew what he was doing and had probably had some leash training. I hope this was a trust building exercise but I know we'll need to do it again.

Maya has taught many dogs proper leash walking behavior.