A New Foster Home - January 2008

Changing homes is stressful for any dog and Grace was no exception. She did not transition well to my busy home.

At Susan's, she lived with 2 other dogs, both of whom were older and much larger than Grace. When she came to my place, she was surrounded by shelties and other breeds. Introductions went well and Grace took up residence on one corner of my couch. Since she didn't soil the furniture in her previous foster home, I assumed that she would be fine. Silly me.

She decided that the couch was hers and urinated all over it. She pretty much reverted to behavior that she was used to - from when she was still in the puppy mill. She didn't want to go outside, but once out, she didn't want to come back in. She chewed off 3 collars and 3 drag lines. She pooped and peed on every dog bed in the living room. She would race around the room in fear of me.

It is not as though I don't know how to handle a shy dog. I gained a lot of valuable insight fostering Lauren. But, Grace really astounded me with her behavior. She seemed almost feral - like she didn't care about people or other animals at all.

At the time, I didn't have a crate for her. So, she started spending her days in my basement, while I was at work. That sounds horrible, doesn't it? Well, it is a daylight basement and she had plenty of room to run around in, toys to play with, dog beds to sleep on and I left the basement door open so that some of the other dogs could go visit her while I was at work. At night, I would go downstairs and lead her back up.

This worked out pretty well until she managed to get her new dragline off. Then I had a very shy (read: scared) sheltie in my basement. A big basement. How in the world was I going to catch her? She would stand just out of reach or run away as fast as she could.

I thought about cornering her, but decided against that. I didn't want to set her trust back any farther than I had to.

So, I set up an x-pen in the basement. I made this the most awesome den you could imagine. It had a ton of blankets for her to lie on. I covered it with another blanket to make it mre den-like. I left the door open and started feeding her in it.

It took more than a week before I was able to stay in the basement with her while she ate with the x-pen door open. Once she started doing that, I started standing closer and closer to the pen while she ate. Then, about 2 weeks after she first chewed that drag line off, I was able to close the x-pen door while she was in it.

I entered the pen and slipped a metal choke chain over her head. I really don't like chokes, but Grace chewed everything else off, so I was a little desperate. I brought her upstairs and put her in her new (for her) crate.

The choke was not the right collar for Grace. When it would tighten, she would become more and more frightened. I was finally able to find a martingale collar (also called a limited choke) with a small chain in the front and nylon in the back. With this new collar, she is no longer choked when she pulls and it is tight enough that she can not slip out of it.

Changing her collar and catching her gently and humanely really started helping her to see that she would be OK here.