Still signs of past fear/abuse after all of these years

[honeybears]

with Wylie and its been almost 7 years since we have had her. I wonder what in her previous life that she still shows her fear. It took her almost 2 years to warm up to us.

The other day we were playing fetch, she jumped up and knocked a chair over, As I went down to pick up her frisbee, she cowared with her ears down, thinking I was going to hit her. She did the same thing this morning. She was on our bed and started barking I walked up to her and a low but firm voice and said "Wylie shhhsh." She again cowared and slunk into herself with her ears down, frightened.

We have never touched her, we dont even raise our voices to her becuase she is that sensitive.

Its truly sad that she still has these deep memories of what happened so long ago.

I am so glad she found us , she is our little angel and has brought us so many happy times

[Mary_NH]

it is sad to see that. Even with cats. Dixie Chick, whom I fostered and adopted last year, can flinch a little when I go to pet her.
Dixie's owner died so we don't know how she and the blind Siamese were treated...but I'm not 100% sure it was well.

[DeLaUK]

I know how you feel. Quite a few of the dogs Ive had, even the ones that dont particularly act fearful day to day, theres nearly always something that will trigger off a fearful response.

One dog I had, Ziggy, he was a 'little' on the timid side but generally was pretty friendly with people....it would take him a few seconds before cautiously greeting someone he didnt know and then a minute or two to decide if he could relax around them....but if he saw a kid...a boy between the ages of about 6-10 years and especially if they had a baseball cap on he went into absolute fear mode. Never reacted that way with girls, younger boys or older ones whether they wore a baseball cap or not. Oh....also men carrying 'long things'....like a pole, or plank of wood, ladders....again he would be fine with that same person if they were carrying a plastic bag, picking up and moving a trash can etc.

Another dog I had, nothing to do with abuse, he would always let me clip his nails, never gave me a problem...at all....one day he caught his pad and ripped the nail on a broken bottle....I could never clip his nails again after that, well I could have but it would have taken about 3 people to hold him down or Idve had to sedate him.

I think something so traumatic only has to happen one time and they never really forget it.