My dog is extremely skittish, we kept him isolated for the first 5 months of his life and he’s afraid of everything. What can we do?

Hi Cindy,

I've gone over your website many times and I've learned a lot from it. I have some questions in regards to my 1 year old intact male Shiba Inu. My boyfriend and I got him from a breeder last year when he was 10 weeks old. Unfortunately we didn't do enough research. The breeder only brought the sire out to meet us and told us that the mother was too skittish to take out. We bought the puppy anyway. She had warned us not to bring the puppy out anywhere where another dog might be because it might get Parvo and die. So we mainly kept the pup within our house and yard for the first 5 months until all the shots were completed. Because we didn't do enough socialization and I think due to the breeding of this dog, he is extremely skittish.

Whenever we take him out for walks, you can tell he's constantly on alert and is darting from side to side. We first attempted to force him to walk next to us by having a very short leash, but he ended up pulling so hard, he ends up hyperventilating and/or vomiting regardless of whether he's in a harness or leash and collar. We've tried taking him on walks through the park, but unfortunately because he looks like a puppy, people just come up and pet him without stopping to ask. As a result he's drawn blood from a friend's friend who came up behind him and started tugging on some loose fur on his neck. I definitely don't want our dog to react in that manner, but it frustrates me that people assume it's ok to start petting him even when I've already told them not to.. not to mention the loose dogs running around parks or beaches.

At home he's a bit more confident, but you can tell that any new situation seems frightening. He takes a long time to get used to new people coming into our house. I don't mind a bark or two to let me know someone's coming, but I don't know how to stop him. He'll run to his kennel and continue growling, which at times escalates to a loud bugling howl.

Long story short.. the end result I would like to see is that the dog trusts us enough to be able to go for walks calmly and to be able to stop his reaction to strangers in the house. Treats don't work since he's so stressed out that he doesn't eat or drink. I've read in your other answers that you train your dogs to be neutral. If you have a suggestion on which collar/harness to use on him when we take him for walks or whether an e-collar would help us in training him. We've already purchased the "Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months." We've tried the SENSE-ation Harness and, a head harness (Gentle Leader), and the British Slip Lead.

Any advice would be appreciated. We've done some dumb things already, but we want to try to make the best of it and start on the right path. I'm sure there's a lot we need to work on, but this is one of the issues that's most important to me.

Thanks,
Pei