[kjc]

Ignoring unwanted behavior is good because if you don't, then the result would be to encourage it, in her mind.

You also must try to get past this. Dogs live in the moment, she's reacting to what is going on now. You have to forgive her and yourself and pretend it didn't happen. If you're nervous, she'll sense that and respond to it. You must be calm around her.

Just ignore her for now, go about your day to day business. Get a routine of feeding and taking care of her needs, and do it all without emotion. Just do the basics, when she begins to realize you're not going to harm her, she'll get bored and slowly try to get next to you again.

This is a critical time. If you react to her growling, she will learn that she has power over you. You want to avoid that. You must also get over the fear of being bitten. Even if she did bite you, and you contracted Rabies, you would get shots to cure it. So getting bit will not kill you.

I once had a terrible fear of snakes. I would get weak in the knees, start shaking all over, break out in a sweat, and just about pass out. When I worked for a vet, I asked one of the clients, who bred snakes, what was the best way to get over my fear. He said to come out to his place of business and he would teach me to work with his snakes. I started working with the baby snakes. The bad thing with babies is they perceive themselves as prey, and tend to bite more often than grown snakes. The good thing was that their bites would not kill me.

I thought about this long and hard... he was right. I wasn't afraid of the snakes themselves, but of death by snake. It took a few weeks for my mind to accept this. The next step was to learn how to react to a bite. The goal was to be completely non-reactive. Yeah, right. The first bite had me shaking again and all my irrational fears returned. But as I continued working with the babies, that fear subsided. I could take a bite, and laugh it off. I would bleed a bit, it hurt a bit, but I knew I wouldn't die from it, and that's when my fears subsided.

And just an FYI: The breeder I worked for was the first person in the world to successfully breed Albino Boa Contrictors, and at that time one snake would sell for $10,000.00. He went on to breed Piebald Ball Pythons, and was the first to prove that the piebald coloring was genetic. These sold for $25,000.00 each. Very interesting job.

Sorry about that, now back to your dog. Sounds like she may have spent some time on the street, where she had to rely on her instincts to even survive, or that she was never tamed. This will take time. Just accept her as she is for now, and remove any expectations of how you would like her to be. That will all come in time and it may take months. So you have a dog that's a bit on the wild side, not too friendly, nervous, and unreliable. That's okay. To expect more of her right now will only cause you to be frustrated. Do what you can to be her friend, and don't do what you can't, and accept it for now. If it makes you feel better, look for things around the house that you could use to block any attempt of hers to come after you. This will help put your mind at ease until any unpredictable behavior ceases.