Rescue puppy

[Alisvolatpropiis]

Hi all,

I posted here a few weeks back just before and shortly after rehoming a rescue puppy. Advised by the home that she was 8-12 weeks.

I strongly suspected that she was older than that and this was confirmed by my vet when I took her in for a look over a couple of days after bringing her home.

My vet aged her at 4/4.5 months. I know that the first 16 weeks are vital in terms of a dogs socialisation and training. As she was abandoned in a local park near with two very busy roads either side, I feel safe in my assumption her earliest weeks were not the best.

She is displaying behaviour which suggests she was taken from her mother too early and is often emotionally distant with my dp and I. She can be quite aggressive with other dogs (I believe this to be fear aggression and she is getting so much better with socialisation and training). She also barks at some people, without there being any clear reason why. We have another dog and they get on really well.

My question is - will she be ok or will her shitty early weeks have permanently damaged her in some way?

She'll be ok. You need to work with her though, and it'll pay off.

I was hoping you would say that! More than willing to work with her.

We've had her 6 weeks now and in the last week I've noticed that she is becoming more affectionate with "the humans" in the house. Prior to this she was only really interested in our other dog.

Baby steps!

We got our puppy from Battersea when he was about 15/16 weeks ,he had been dumped a week earlier . He is 4 now and he does have a slight issue with other dogs ,he just doesn't seem to know what to do ,but it doesn't affect anything I do with him . I did socialise him as best I could when we got him but he just doesn't seem to get dogs and is more of a people person .He is however the best dog in the world .

I have a good friend who works for a dog rescue, and who fosters a lot of the dogs herself. She has had some really difficult and shut down dogs, and has turned them all around to move happily on into permanent homes. Some dogs seem to take longer than others, and some are a work in progress for ever although come on in leaps and bounds, but it seems to me with patience and hard work, most dogs will thrive in the right environment.

I have only had dogs from breeders and from when they were 8 weeks so am only speaking from second hand experience through my friend, but being so close to it through her I have actually been pleasantly surprised that rescue dogs are so successfully rehomed time after time.

Good luck, I hope it works out ok.

She will be ok with the right training and time. We got our rescue pup when he was 10 weeks old but he was very poorly for a few months so we were unable to socialise him much ( other than with our other dog ), he's now fine with other dogs, he does bark at lots of things but I think that's just the way he is and the breed he is.

I think the barking may possibly be breed related sometimes...but we're not exactly sure what she is. Nor is anybody else.

Almost certainly a Corgi cross. Either Jack Russell terrier or chihuahua (the shape of her skull says the latter to me).

She looks like a fox!

Thanks for the responses, it has given me a little boost that she will be fine as long as we continue to train, socialise and encourage her.

Our other dog is a rescue from the same dogs home but she was born there and 8 weeks old when we brought her home so we never had any behavioural issues with her.