[yorkietalkjilly]

Her are some ideas to consider, tweak and use as you see fit. She doesn't trust humans so working with her to train her daily and establish a habit of her learning to perform tasks you teach her for a reward/positive response is usually the best way to start to tame a dog so scared they bark and bite, thinking the best defense is a good offense. Dogs that bark and bite are usually just trying to keep people away as they are so anxious around them it's better to just stay lonely. You can work to change that in time using a program to rehab the dog into trusting and enjoying people.

By working to teach her small, simple commands of obedience such as sit, stay, lie down, stop, leave it, bark/quiet, turn around, back up, sit up and beg, you are forming a bond of working trust and wiring your dog's brain to do automatically do what you say. Any of the good obedience trainers online will show you how to teach the basics. Find one on YouTube that is a positive-reward program that doesn't punish or use aversives as a dog like this can just freeze up in fear if she's sprayed in the face with water or some citronella or something. Establish a short session at least twice a day so she can rely on it. Dogs LOVE knowing when they are going to have training and can rely on that part of the day all to themselves and you working one-on-one.

Getting her busy in interactive games and challenges such as walking around teaching her how to sniff out hidden treats or toys about the house is fun for dogs and teaches them to stay focused at a task for a reward and your good pleasure. It gives them a job to do and most dogs love it and will beg to get you to hide treats/toys thereafter so they can "seek". Also hiding a treat under one of 3 upside down plastic cups for the dog to turn over for the treat is lots of fun and challenges the dog to learn to use his nose to sniff out the real treat and not just the scent of a former treat on the edge of a cup. They love the surprise of finding the real treat wherever it is. Over time they get very good at this and just love the challenge and your reactions of pleasure over their cleverness.

Walks and agility will further help build a working bond and enrich the dog's life and make her see that humans are fun, trustworthy and want to help them enjoy life, not just breed and cause them troubles.

Now, once you teach the dog "Leave it" and have taught her to respond to automatically respond to you and enriched her life to that she doesn't have so much time to worry and obsess and her mind/body are less badly wired, you can watch her body attitude when a person she is afraid of or anxious about - which is likely most people other than you - approaches. If she alerts and begins to focus in on that person, a simple "Leave it" can get the message to her to turn away, back off and calm down, control the impulse she's just had. You will more successfully be able to use the term "No" when you see her begin to alert on someone she's not happy around and back her off of them with it. If she persists, stand up and walk toward her making eye contact and walking into her from the front to back her down until she turns away or leaves the area or otherwise submits to let her know you will enforce the "No" or "Leave it" once she's well-learned them but isn't appropriately responding. This is how alpha dogs usually discipline pack members - using the old, stern eye-contact and a good back-off until the other dog submits.

Teaching the bark/quiet commands will help you have more control of her also, but any command taught to a dog like this has to be part of a whole program to gain control of the dog, teaching it to trust again, teach it how to control its impulses, teach it the fun of working with and bonding with and performing for the happiness and rewards of a human and within that framework, even formerly profoundly mentally and physically abused dogs will blossom and start to respond, want to learn how to please you and become your full partner. But it takes a program of training, exercise, challenges/games and life-enrichment to reach and rehab a dog like this most successfully. In time these kind of dogs can truly know how to love people they once mistrusted and feared. No simple quick-fixes are likely to reach her for long.

Dropping treats for your college son to do is another trick to use to help associate someone with good things happening in a dog's mind. You want her to begin to see him as causing good things to happen when he's around. Treats and giving food are like love poems and sweet nothings to dogs! Have your son pick up a bag of chicken pieces you've left by the front door on the porch when he comes in and just drop the occas. chicken treat when he's walking around through the house while he's around. Think of it as therapy for a poor dog with a very troubled and likely cloistered, unhappy past, a dog who is likely very basically frightened of people, perhaps men in particular. She's had her problems in the past and just like a troubled person needs some treatment that may seem like too much trouble or silly but I promise you it will help her eventually and after all, a girl who has been through all she has in the past, needs some TLC.

But your son could most help her by after a while just lying down on the floor in the room she's in and doing nothing but dispensing the odd chicken treat around himself, on his chest and tossing some toward her, not making eye contact or attempting to pet her. Just lying there making himself lower than her level and being non-threatening and occasionally tossing, placing treats around for her edification and enjoyment. A few sessions like this - if he'll truly just leave her be during them - not try to interact with her and stay aloof from her - should teach her he's good, to be trusted and someone to start to approach and befriend on her own terms.

Perhaps she'll just put her head under his hand or stand next to him but those are important signals that she's beginning to accept him but he should still stay aloof, make her work for any attention she gets and give little of it to keep from spooking her at first. In time, he should then be able to pet, cuddle and walk about normally. In time, they can become very good friends using these techniques correctly.

Taking the time to work with her in all of these areas will bring you a happy, healthy and enjoyable pet if you work patiently and persistently at it and keep it gentle, loving and fun.