Omnimaqq

That's a good point about foster care to find out a dogs true personality. We just have to keep reminding ourselves that if we do rehome her that it's the best for her and us. And we're not just abandoning her. She's such a sweet soul and it's heartbreaking for us to see her like this. I just hope whoever we find will love her a million times over and provide the environment she needs to thrive.

Thank you for your honest feedback. It's good to see both sides of the coin so to speak. It's true that it's only been a short 3 months she's been with us and perhaps only now just settled (and we moved recently too). We have spoken to a vet from the shelter who has prescribed her some anxiety meds for the short - medium term, she's in day care for the whole day until they start working and for us, my partner is looking to speak to her therapist first before we make the final call. This unfortunately is a combination of the unfortunate timing and circumstances we have at the moment. I guess also having the wrong expectations from the beginning what it was going to be like. But at the same time we learnt a lot about her and hope that this learning will allow us to rehome her if it comes to that. I definitely feel we were too spontaneous, and next time would require the shelter or bring an experienced professional to obverse and assess a dog's behaviour before we ever adopt again (if ever).

Thanks for sharing your story. That's what we suspect as well when we observe her when there are other dogs, she is so so so excited (at the park, at the vet, on walks etc) and a multi dog family would be perfect for her. We also noticed that she has a particular separation anxiety towards me leaving as well but not my partner (as much) and perhaps it's because I feed her food most of the time (and she's scared I won't be there to feed her?). Unfortunately for us, we won't be able to get a second dog (financially and just emotionally won't have the capacity to), esp we don't know how that second dog is going to be like making it a bit of a gamble. We're still tossing up options but for now, we're taking her to daycare which we found as an option at the local vet (not cheap... But no other options), we've called the shelter we took her from and they prescribed some trazodone for her so we'll see how she goes from there.

Thank you, I've contacted the vet at PBV and will have a call with her tomorrow or Tuesday.

She seems to be ok if she has another dog with her, she's also good with cats (but cats don't like her as much being an over excited teenager). Our sitter had a dog and would leave them at times to go groceries and that was fine. We live further from the sitter now so we'll need to find someone else but daycare everyday is too expensive for us right now.

Thanks for your comment. Are you able to link my Vet behaviourist as I am unable to find it online.

Strangely I just joined that group today before your post. We definitely don't want her to go back to the shelter because we know her and that will just make her worse. If we go with the rehome option, are there any paths to get her directly rehome to a new home or rescue organisation that fosters? How do we go about this process?

This little pup was in the shelter for a week and they found her in the street. We are not sure about her history but she may or may not be a stray. Perhaps it was naive of us that we didn't fully understand behavioural issues before we started. She was very whingy and excited in the shelter when she saw us. But now we understand this may be a sign of panic for human attention. We had nothing else from the shelter in terms of their diagnosis of her behavioural conditions given she was not in the shelter for a long time. Perhaps we should have gotten a behaviourist to check on the dogs before we took one home. We don't blame the shelter but we really wished we knew all of this before we started but I guess it's always a gamble if you adopt. We kept thinking that things would get better and if we keep going at it that she will get better. When we got her she was no desexed given the age and timing in the shelter. She was also on heat so we had to wait a month before we could get her desexed. We thought that after desexing she'd be better and less fearful which has been the case. She's gaining more confidence everyday. We really thought that if we get over one hurdle after the next eventually she will be ok.

Thank you Diva. We will definitely disclose her behavioural issues if we do end up rehoming her. Hopefully finding a good match for her needs. We can get a behavioural vet to try and resolve her issues but with a no end date in sight (and most literature suggest to not leave them alone whilst the treatment / remidation is occurring), this thought / path is placing a great strain on us financially and emotionally. But maybe her SA issues can be resolved in time and since we've come so far it is premature to just give up now and give her up? Photo of destruction attached.

Hi everyone, My partner and I are emotionally exhausted and need some advice from people who may have gone through a similar situation to share their wisdom / insight so that we can see that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Two months ago in October we adopted a sweet shelter dog, a staffy x of 8 months, from SCDH. My partner had owned a small yorkie before as her family pet and I have never had a dog before. So overall, I would say we were completely inexperienced and naive about what was to come. Shenzi is a really sweet girl with a whole lot of positives and equally a whole lot of negatives that came with this ball of fluff. We booked a behaviourist the second day we got her because she got triggered on a walk by skateboards / shopping cart and she ran (with me on the other end of the leash) all the way home. This is when we first noticed that Shenzi is actually a really fearful dog. We didn't even know that was a thing before we started to research vigorously about it. She would startle at the sound of sudden noises (esp. Skateboards) and would either freeze (and she recently learnt how to try and back out of her collar as well). This was manageable as we have been training her for obedience, and desensitising her to these noises. She's also scared of strangers (esp tall big men maybe with a beard maybe without) and it takes her a long time to warm up to them. At first she would just try and escape or go around them (for people on the street). However, recently she has developed a tendency to bark at these strangers/colleagues when my partner brings her to work (dog friendly office). She's perfectly fine with dogs and would get super excited to see them to sniff them and if possible play with them. She's gentle with smaller dogs (as we had a sitter with a toy chihuahua who become her best friend). She also loves children (but I'd be scared to let her play with them). We also discovered that she likes to nibble on people and she has poor bite inhibition (maybe to do with her age and that she may not have had the chance to learn when she was younger with other puppies). For example, she sometimes gets crazy at home (we think because she needs to poo? Or otherwise somehow gets overly excited and wants to play) and she started to bite me pretty hard on the arms, on my pants, my legs and plays tug with my clothes. I've been locking myself away when that happens as she is just too strong and fast (standing still in a corner does NOT work as she would just bite me where she can). Our last straw came about yesterday with her severe separation anxiety kicking in (she managed to tear up half the carpet found the wood with nails on them and hurt herself trying to dig her way out). For the last 3 months we've had her, we've been rearranging our entire work schedules to ensure she is never alone (so either we'd work from home, bring her to work, or she's at the sitters). She even cries if I'm in another room and she can't see me. We don't know what to do. We love her but we're both mentally exhausted from the time and resources we've spent so far on all her issues. She's way better now since we first got her but it hasn't been an easy journey. In the end we just feel like we've done everything we could have (besides shelling out for a more expensive behaviourist and daycare until we desensitise her to us leaving, but we both work and me especially long hours which places an unfair strain on my partner to look after her when I work late), and that potentially she is just not a good fit for us. With all the bad, she is still a really really lovely dog, loves other dogs, loves children, women, the vet, loves to cuddle us in bed at night, and we've taught her obedience like sit, stay, down, leave it, touch, she even knows weave. She has an adorable face and smile and so goofy at times and yet we just feel like we have no life outside the dog given the mirade of issues we've had to deal with. We're tossing up options to continue training her or to rehome her to a multi dog household (she seemed to do well when she was at the sitters and the sitter would leave Shenzi and her dog alone to do groceries at times) to lessen her anxiety. We are leaning towards the latter because we just have no more energy to give and think that perhaps this will be the best and happier option for her (and us) in the long term. Sorry for the long post but we just really need advice and help. Thanks in advance.