I think we're so fortunate!
Discussion
We've had Jess since she was 10 weeks old, she was with 7 brothers and sisters found at the side of the road in a pillow case.
We took Jess because she looked unique whereas the others all looked like atleast one of the others.
It took a few days for Sasha, our other dog (another rescue) to accept her. She did the usual nip her, make her yelp then snuggled with her and let jess sniff her tuppence.
As she got older we knew she wasn't quite right, nothing would sink in but also she would be absolutely scared to death at every single noise she heard even though shes never experienced anything bad (discounting where she was found - thinking she was too young for that to affect her).
When she was a pup she would bark at everything but being small and high pitched it was quite funny but since getting to 9-12 months she's pretty big with a deeper bark so it's quite scary.
We spent a lot of quality time having her trained and doing quite a bit ourselves. The trainer said she had special needs and was the lower 10% of dogs that don't know their place or their job so just bark at everything.
When we take her for a walk she is in the middle of my wife and I with sasha also between us so Jess is protected from both sides, this has stopped her barking at things/dogs/people/cars for the most part. If there's a huge group if people with loose dogs we just divert, you can really see her change from being relaxed to scared to death within a few seconds then she just goes.
She's really weird, she loves to lean in for a cuddle but the second you move towards her she moves away, if you move toward her face on she'll back off but go face side on she'll give you a kiss.
If we're watching football and my team are losing I've still got to speak in a happy tone, once it was raining and because a friend shouted at the tv she went and sat on the lawn shaking rather than come in.
Anyway I'm waffling, the reason I say we're fortunate is because we've got a really amazing dog that loves us to bits but I think due to her nature, if we hadn't have picked her over the other 6 she might not have been with us now.
We took Jess because she looked unique whereas the others all looked like atleast one of the others.
It took a few days for Sasha, our other dog (another rescue) to accept her. She did the usual nip her, make her yelp then snuggled with her and let jess sniff her tuppence.
As she got older we knew she wasn't quite right, nothing would sink in but also she would be absolutely scared to death at every single noise she heard even though shes never experienced anything bad (discounting where she was found - thinking she was too young for that to affect her).
When she was a pup she would bark at everything but being small and high pitched it was quite funny but since getting to 9-12 months she's pretty big with a deeper bark so it's quite scary.
We spent a lot of quality time having her trained and doing quite a bit ourselves. The trainer said she had special needs and was the lower 10% of dogs that don't know their place or their job so just bark at everything.
When we take her for a walk she is in the middle of my wife and I with sasha also between us so Jess is protected from both sides, this has stopped her barking at things/dogs/people/cars for the most part. If there's a huge group if people with loose dogs we just divert, you can really see her change from being relaxed to scared to death within a few seconds then she just goes.
She's really weird, she loves to lean in for a cuddle but the second you move towards her she moves away, if you move toward her face on she'll back off but go face side on she'll give you a kiss.
If we're watching football and my team are losing I've still got to speak in a happy tone, once it was raining and because a friend shouted at the tv she went and sat on the lawn shaking rather than come in.
Anyway I'm waffling, the reason I say we're fortunate is because we've got a really amazing dog that loves us to bits but I think due to her nature, if we hadn't have picked her over the other 6 she might not have been with us now.
And for all her issues, it sounds like she's a very sweet girl.
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