Hi All -
I have gotten some very helpful info from you all and am hoping I can solicit more! We purchased 2 puppies November 2006 - they are sisters, and we quickly realized that having littermates is not the ideal situation (for the puppies or the owners!). Anyway, we are madly in love with them and they are a joy. We crated them right from the start and thought they were really getting the idea of where they were supposed to do their business. One of them (Lily) right from the start has been extremely "skittish". Any noise while she is out will make her run full out to the door to get back to the safety of the indoors. I walk the 2 of them together every morning and they can go for a couple of miles together with no problem. If I try to take Lily for a walk by herself she can barely leave the backyard. This is our big dilemma: they are now almost 1 1/2 years old and Lily is still not house trained. We cannot see any signals. Her sister (Lulu) will cry at the door, or come up and scratch us so we know she needs an out. She NEVER soils inside. Lily would much rather soil inside than face the terror of the outside (of course this is my interpretation of her behavior!!). We try to take them out on a regular schedule, but so many times we find her poop in the house and last night I caught her squating and peeing -- no signal that she needed an out. We are stumpted. We do not crate them as often because they are getting bigger and we felt they were doing OK. Should we go back to a regular crating schedule? We are really struggling with this. Lily is a love dog but we are concerned that her fears are keeping her from learning --- she will literally stop mid-poop and run to the door if she hears a car door slam, a person's voice or any extra noise while she is outside. We got them when they were 12 weeks old, and she has been this fearful from the beginning. She loves any dogs that pass by, but will not approach any people. I want to deal with this behavior while she is still young. Any advice you might have would be SO welcome!! They are such lovely animals and we are enjoying them -- but this needs to be solved soon!! Thanks for your help, Kristen

Lilly needs more alone time. She depends too much on her littermate. I would take he tons of places by herself. This will build her confidence.
Also go back to crate and teathering her to you. No freedom. The more accidents she has in the house the harder it will be to get her housetrained.

You should have kept them totally seperated the first 8-10 months old so. But since we can't turn back the clock, you can start now. I would not let them have any interaction at all. The skittish one has to learn to be tough on her own and it's not going to happen till she is more independant. Don't let her out without a leash, don't let her bolt to the door. Crate her when you can't supervise her 100%. Go back to puppy basics with her and start over. Use of a crate isn't age dependant, its situation dependant. This situation calls for alot more crating and seperation from the bitch.

The trouble with raising 2 littermates together like that is, as you are now seeing, making them dependant and bonded to eachother instead of you, the handler. Now is your job to try and break this dependancy, which is very difficult to do. I have had people complain to me about their dog, who was raised with an adult dog, not even a littermate, that when the older dog isn't around the younger dog is constantly wondering "where'd she go???" instead of listening to what he's told. With littermates its even worse.

Dogs also pick up on the reaction of the owners and the way you are around them. So go out there and don't be frustrated, annoyed or bossy in any way. Just let them figure it out on their own. If they bolt for the door just stand your ground, let the dog run into the end of the leash, then walk in the opposite direction calmly and ignore the dog entirely.

 Quote: mike j schoonbrood

So go out there and don't be frustrated, annoyed or bossy in any way.

I agree with Mike's whole post but I wanted to also add to this,

Do not try and comfort her either, no baby talk, petting, saying "it's okay" or ANYTHING like that...this will reward her behavior.

Best thing is to ignore it and like said, "walk on".
Once you see her visibly relax and walk out with you, then you can say "good girl" but not before.