Quote:
Originally Posted by bridget212  Hi!
I am new! I rescued a 3 year old male from a mill last Saturday. He is adorable! I have zero experience with Yorkies. Any info you would like to share would be great.
Here is some info on Bam:
He is around people all the time. Eats Natural Balance food and gets a little cheese as a treat.
He sleeps a lot! He also sleeps in bed with me at night.
He is petrified to go outside. I take him out with his blanket for a little while each day. He is not house trained. I refuse to crate him because of his past. I have the kitchen gated off and have bought training pads and dog litter. I am not getting far. Help!!!
He will start to squat and when I reach for him he bolts and poops on the way!
Thanks for listening and any thoughts are appreciated!
Bridget  |
I've been where you are at. A little over 8 months ago I adopted a 4 yr old breeder release yorkie. I'd never had a yorkie before either, and she knew nothing and was scared out of her mind. She has come a long way and is house trained now. It takes more patience than work with our yorkie to make progress, but she is smart and is coming along. You have to remember they know nothing of the real world and have no idea why they are with us or what we want from them. Mine had never been shown affection, the first time I tried to kiss her she threw herself back, I think she thought I was going to bite her face. It's teaching an old dog new tricks. I can't crate our dog because of her past, she just freaks out. I can't gate her off as she climbs right up the side and over the top and I'm afraid she'll land wrong and hurt herself. She'd never had treats or toys or played before, so we had to try different treats till we found a couple she really liked. Then I started taking her out about once an hour. If she peed she got a treat if she pooped she got two treats. If she did nothing she got no treat and the potty treat was the only time she got that treat. I used other treats for rewards on other tasks. Lots of patience and love goes a long way, our dog had so much fear if she did have an accident I never punished her. I would sit on the floor and let her know I knew what she did and pretend to be sad or cry. Stange, but it was like she knew my sadness and reacted to it, we never yelled or spanked her. Still haven't. The more she went potty outside the longer I would stretch out the time between. Now she's good for hours, sometimes she looks to me for a treat when she comes in sometimes she doesn't. If she does I still give her one if she went potty. I could write a book on what we have done and taught this little girl over the last 8 months. She still doesn't get toys or playing and has fear of some things and everyone but my hubby and I. I read an article on Puppy Mill dogs that said some get over the fear, some never do. Feel free to contact me if you need anything. I am not an expert, just someone who's a few blocks ahead of you in the same race. The vet said sometimes she would have accidents out of panic, if we left she thought we were going to abandon her and she had no idea what to do but panic and pee.