[yorkietalkjilly]

Thank you for giving this poor baby a loving, responsible forever home after what she's been living in! She's likely been damaged by her previous life so you have some work to do to help her rehabilitate from previous attitudes and associations she's formed but you can do it with enough love, patience, repetition, reward and determination.

If she was from a puppymill, she could be used to her living quarters being only in crates and being in captivity in a crate/cage all day and night so full freedom is new and unsettling to her, so true freedom of movement about your house could take her a few weeks or even months to achieve, given her history.

No telling what her previous life was like so allow her some more couch time for a couple of more weeks and then begin to engage her in some brief play sessions down on the floor using high-value treats, such as warm, boiled chicken placed in a Kong toy to draw her out a little bit. In time, when she is comfortable down on the floor, tease her a bit with your hand by closing some chicken in your fist and get down on the floor with her and bait her with your closed fist and make her really paw at your fist to get you to open it for that chicken. Make her chase your closed fist around as you move it back and forth and when she does, laugh a lot and show her that that type of play is good and makes you happy. And then, she will begin to associate the wonderful chicken with being down on the floor and in time will begin to see being on the floor as a good place to be.

Also, given her puppymill background, she is probably also used to drinking from a crate/guinea pig-type upside down crate-mounted water bottle so you might have to encourage her to drink her water from her bowl but believe me, no healthy dog will really get dangerously dehydrated when water is nearby in a bowl. Just show her the water bowl frequently and say "Good water bowl" when she looks at it, change the water and place the fresh water down for her and act very happy when she does drink from her water bowl and even treat her when she does to show her that drinking from the bowl is a good thing.

I don't know if just my dogs are the only dogs to do this but every single time I change the water in their bowls, my dogs have all - over the years - been immediately spurred to go get a drink of the fresh water as soon as I walk away from the bowl! So you might try changing her water frequently just to see if she is a fresh-water lover like every dog I've ever had has been.

Encourage her to use her doggie steps as tiny little Yorkies have fragile joints and the repeated jumping up and down from furniture is usually too much repetitive force on their joints and surrounding support structures and tissue and in time, bad things can happen. I had a little 13 year old Yorkie dislocate a shoulder joint merely jumping down off the couch using her stool. The vet said the dislocation happened from all the repetitive jumping she did in order to be up on the couch or bed with me so you can imagine if she'd been allowed to land with full force on the floor after jumping straight down off the couch or bed and imagine how much sooner her shoulder(or other) joint could have given way.

I used large cardboard boxes placed alongside the doggie steps for a couple of weeks while I was training Tibbe to use the doggie steps as he was 9 mos. old when I got him and wanted to just directly jump up and down off the couch himself or cheat and jump off the side of the top doggie step. And then I used the phrase "use doggie step jump" and a treat to run him up and down the steps repeatedly and would always say "uh oh" and scowl at him when he bypassed the stairs and then would go into a training session luring him up and down the steps with a high-value treat right afterward to replace the incorrect thing he'd just done in his mind with the correct action with lots of praise when he went up or down on the steps properly.

It all worked and after a couple of months, he was completely trained to use only his doggie steps. Ever since his early training, all along the way since and even now, 6 years later, I still praise and treat him for using his "good doggie step jump" to keep it fresh in his mind that they are good to use.

Eventually, when your baby is more settled into her new freedom and home, brief and frequent obedience training sessions that are made fun and kept upbeat and very rewarding for her will eventually help fill her with self-confidence and pride that she can learn to do what you say and do her commands on request and in the process, you two will form a tight bond of teamwork and she'll love the pride she sees you have in her and feel much more assured because of it. You can totally reshape a dog's behavior and confidence using behavior modification techniques and positive-reinforcement obedience training. There are also lessons you can give her to help her build up her self-confidence once she is ready. Likely she will always be a little reserved or fearful at times as damaged dogs never truly are 100% "cured" from the bad old associations but they can get awfully close to it. They may revert to old behavior from time to time, which is to be expected. Just re-direct her to something positive when she does by drawing her out of herself with an invitation to go walkies or play ball or chase you around and she'll snap out of it.