flutterbye
New member
- Nov 1, 2008
- 2
- 0
- 1
Background: This is a Springer Spaniel. We got her when she was about 4 months old and she is now almost 2 years old. She came from an abusive situation where a man and his son beat her, screamed at her, and often didn't feed her. When we got her she was skin and bones, extremely sick, and very afraid. She spent almost a week at the vet's getting antibiotics and food via IV and our vet was amazed that she survived.
Since we have brought her home from the vet she has been one of the sweetest dogs we have ever owned. She loves women and kids, she was very easy to train and she is just an all around great pet. The only problem is that she is still very timid and afraid around men. She loves my husband and grown son and always wants attention from them but when she approaches them she will get down and belly crawl toward them and when they reach down to pet her she gets scared and jumps away. This goes on three or four times until she finally rolls over on her back instead of jumping away. I know it sounds like she is playing, but you can tell by looking at her that she isn't playing, she is truly afraid they are going to hit her. She shivers throughout all of this, and when they reach toward her she actually cringes. Once she finally rolls over and lets them pet her, they give her a belly rub after that they can pet her and play with her and she acts perfectly normal for the rest of the interaction, but the cycle starts all over again the next time. We thought this would get better with time but we've had her for over 18 months now and it keeps happening. They are careful to use soft, happy voices with her so that she knows she isn't in trouble, but that doesn't seem to help. Is there anything we can do to give her more confidence around men?
Since we have brought her home from the vet she has been one of the sweetest dogs we have ever owned. She loves women and kids, she was very easy to train and she is just an all around great pet. The only problem is that she is still very timid and afraid around men. She loves my husband and grown son and always wants attention from them but when she approaches them she will get down and belly crawl toward them and when they reach down to pet her she gets scared and jumps away. This goes on three or four times until she finally rolls over on her back instead of jumping away. I know it sounds like she is playing, but you can tell by looking at her that she isn't playing, she is truly afraid they are going to hit her. She shivers throughout all of this, and when they reach toward her she actually cringes. Once she finally rolls over and lets them pet her, they give her a belly rub after that they can pet her and play with her and she acts perfectly normal for the rest of the interaction, but the cycle starts all over again the next time. We thought this would get better with time but we've had her for over 18 months now and it keeps happening. They are careful to use soft, happy voices with her so that she knows she isn't in trouble, but that doesn't seem to help. Is there anything we can do to give her more confidence around men?