Hello,
My husband and I have 2 huskies, Sasha, 2.5 year old black and white, and Bayleigh, 9 month old red and white. We have had Sasha since she was 9 weeks old and have had a fun time raising her. She is energetic, outgoing, loves all people (especially children), and just wants to run, play and be loved. We just got Bayleigh at 9 months old and she is terrified of everything. She have been outside in a pen all her life and we have to have her as an indoor dog. She runs from us and paces back and forth whenever we are around. She doesn't like treats and that makes it hard to house train her. She also won't walk out the door with any of us standing near it. At night she is too stressed to sleep, and keeps us up barking to get out of the crate, we put her on the bed and she is quiet but doesn't sleep. She has now learned how to get off the bed, but since she isn't house trained we cannot let her roam around to potty anywhere. We have only had her a little while and are looking for some ideas on how to train the pup.

On a good note, amazingly she walks perfect on a leash, has a great appetite, does not bite or snap, and if you do get to her she will fall asleep on you after a little while.

I have decided to join this site in hopes of finding some advice.

Welcome, Your girls are gorgeous! I'm in SC but visit NC frequently. What part are you in and maybe we could set up a play date!

Welcome. I'm also curious where in NC you are located.

How long have you had Bayleigh? One of my rescues comes from a bad home and has fear issues as well. A year and a half later we've made "some" progress. Good luck to you, I don't wish that kind of work on anyone but I'm glad that you have given her a second chance. Hopefully she is now in her forever home.

I am in the triad area of NC (Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point), there are lots of dog parks. I know Sasha would love a play date.

We have only had Bayleigh for 4 days, the only fear I have is making her worse. I had a timid German Shepherd growing up, but she wasn't afraid of us, and she (13 years later), still has slight issues but is happy. I have never given up on a dog, and I don't want to give up on Bayleigh, but I also don't want to make her worse. We go lots of places, we have a bar we go to that is dog friendly, and we are used to taking Sasha everywhere. When we can't take her with us, she goes to a doggie camp where she gets to play all day with other dogs. I fear that Bayleigh's issues will be too much, and she will not be able to do all that Sasha does. I am hoping for some ideas on how to make her more comfortable with people so that we can be her forever home.

Welcome! I am in Raleigh, NC. Nice to see the NC crowd growing! Unfortunately I have no advice about Bayleigh as I have never had to deal with those types of issues, but I wish you lots and lots of luck!!

Welcome to the forum! I wish you the best of luck with Bayleigh and I hope you are able to work with her issues.

Sasha & Bayleigh wrote:

We have only had Bayleigh for 4 days, the only fear I have is making her worse. I had a timid German Shepherd growing up, but she wasn't afraid of us, and she (13 years later), still has slight issues but is happy. I have never given up on a dog, and I don't want to give up on Bayleigh, but I also don't want to make her worse. We go lots of places, we have a bar we go to that is dog friendly, and we are used to taking Sasha everywhere. When we can't take her with us, she goes to a doggie camp where she gets to play all day with other dogs. I fear that Bayleigh's issues will be too much, and she will not be able to do all that Sasha does. I am hoping for some ideas on how to make her more comfortable with people so that we can be her forever home.

At this point I'd just let her do what she feels comfortable with while she adjusts to the drastic change that's just happened to her (i.e. new home, new people, new doggy companion, new environment, possibly new food, new schedule, etc.). Being fearful already she'll likely take a lot longer than a "normal" dog. For the first 2 weeks with our fearful one we let her be completely, with the exception of necessary outside potty trips. She was terrified of everything and she wouldn't leave her crate for anything at all. The crate has been her lifeline so to speak, she still runs to her crate all the time and spends the majority of her days in it even now. It's her "safe space". Does Bayleigh have a safe space to call her own?

I don't think you'll make her worse but at the same time I wouldn't force anything that isn't absolutely necessary for the time being. The only thing I forced with my fearful one was going outside to potty because going in the house was not acceptable and she needed to learn that from the beginning despite how terrified she was of being taken out. Eventually you should start to see some progress and will want to start working with her and encouraging good behavior and coming out of her shell but do remember not to reward/reinforce her fearfulness as that would be a step in the wrong direction. At this point though I'd just give her some space and let her do her own thing, after another week and a half or so maybe try taking a simple step forward with something you would like to improve or work on with her. Just be patient with her and don't get discouraged, also remember every dog is an individual and will take varying amounts of time to cope and move forward. I know my in-laws have a puppy mill rescue who has some serious fear issues and it's taking their dog MUCH longer to show small improvements than it's taken with our fearful dog. I'm sure you'll get to a place works for you and the dog eventually, don't give up on her.

Val,

Thank you very much for the advice and the encouragement. She has her crate, and she is using that a lot now when she is in the house. She just doesn't like it at night. It is nice to have someone to talk out the problems with her, so I really appreciate it. Thanks again :-)

YAY im liking all the nc folks joining up. Maybe we can start a husky huddle like you Colorado folks

I would love to get my huskies together with others. We have quite a few in my area, and sometimes get to see them when we go to the dog park, but it's always hit or miss.

I would LOVE a husky group to get together with!! I am so jealous of the CO folks. The FL folks seem to have a nice group too.

i'm about 2 hours from greensboro..there's practically no one in my area. i guess lisa is but i want more virginia people!!

Just to update, my husband learned from a site about tethering the dog to you if it is frightened. While I was at work he did this and puttered around the kitchen and his man cave. Happy to say, I came home to a different dog. She is no longer completely terrified AND she slept through the whole night without making a peep or pottying anywhere. She is still a little skittish if you move too fast, but we also noticed she was a lot more confident on our walk, actually sniffing and running to catch up with Sasha. I never would have believed something so simple as keeping her near us would have worked that quickly, but I am amazed at the difference. Thank you for the support, joining this site was a great decision and I hope my girls can meet some of your dogs sometime.

I hear Greensboro has a fantastic dog park, I haven't been myself, we go to on in Kernersville, but if NC wants to meet up, I can look into more details.

That is so awesome!!!!

Wow, that's great news. I used the tether method with our second dog who did not have fear issues but was having housetraining trouble. It worked great for house training but I've never heard of it for fearful dogs. I'm so glad it's working so well and so quickly!