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Originally Posted by matese Poor sweet little boy. This is how it is with rescues, never knowing what their past was. Lots of trial and errors, lots of money spent on what he likes and doesn't. But lots of patience and TLC over time he will come around. If he's not use to human contact that will take time. Do you have an idea of how old he may be. My boy is a rescue, but he was surrendered, not abused, loved much and spoiled rotten, I keep in contact with his prev. owner, send pics and vids. I am very lucky that I know what his background was. He was gotten for a little girl whose parents were getting divorced, the dog was to ease her pain for daddy not being there. The dog had no toys, the child was his entertainment. They didn't want him to play with toys, only play with the child who carried him around like an infant in her arms when she came home from school. The mom worked so the dog was kept in a crate for 8 to 9 hours all week.
When I got him I didn't know his back ground for 3 weeks. The 2nd day I had him we went to Pet Supplys to buy toys, he had no interest so I selected a bunch of things. My passed girl loved balls, she had so many in dif. sizes. This boy had no interest in even a ball. It took close to one year of enticing and teasing him with toys to get him to play. Now he's like a little kid when he gets a new toy, he loves, loves toys, and balls, he flings everything all over the room and my heart just swells with joy.
It just takes time for their personality to come through, some longer then others, you are dedicated to this little guy, you only have him a few months,and changes do not come over night. Working on training him will build a strong bond between the two of you and it will build self confidence in him.
Finding a high value training reward seems to be quite a challenge with this lil guy, I do hope you find something that he really loves. My guy is very food motivated, training him was so easy, he would stand on his head if that was in his training program for his reward treat. |
The shelter said they think he is about 4 years old and our vet confirmed that she feels like that is roughly his age as well.
He loves rope toys and stuffed squeaky toys but when he is nervous, he ignores everything.
He does like his tuna treats I made him but he won’t take them if we are outside of the home. We have decided to work on having him take a treat from our hand this week before he starts training to get him at least willing to take the treat during training and not expect it thrown on the floor!
Our guess with Bronx is that he was possibly used as a breeder and left in a crate unless he was needed. The first few weeks we had him, he only came out of his crate long enough to eat, get a drink or go outside (we left it open, he was more than welcome to be out with us) and he panicked one night when we moved it to clean and ran circles whining looking for it. He is currently sleeping on the other end of the couch from me, so he is making progress! He wasn’t housetrained and despite taking him out every 3 hours when we first brought him home, he would only pee every 12 hours. He now pees everytime he is outside and on everything he sees and he doesn’t seem to like the feeling of grass.
We still have a lot to help him with but at least he has made progress and trusts us more than he did. We were going to try a little longer to go without proper training classes but as he gets more comfortable inside the home with us the more we are realizing that he does need some manners (he mouths and nips when he is excited and he gets really excited to meet other dogs - hates people, loves dogs!). Figured it was best for him to get the process started now and hopefully, if anything, he learns to trust us completely! I’ve never adopted a dog before so this is all new to me and I’m definitely not ashamed to admit that my husband and I need help him so he can live happily with us
I’m glad you got your little one...the situation of having to surrender is always sad but at least they know he went to a good home!