by David Aaron White

Created on: November 09, 2008   Last Updated: December 02, 2008

The word "timid" is defined as "lacking in courage or self-confidence" according to Merriam-Webster Online. When you rescue a dog from an animal shelter or foster home that is labeled timid, or if you notice that he or she is in fact quite shy and slightly nervous in the company of others, then you need to take certain steps to create a suitable home environment to avoid doing any harm to your new pet. After all, you want to give your dog the best life possible, and no two dogs are exactly the same. What works for one dog may not work for the next; the point is, you need to understand your dog's personality before deciding on how to assimilate him or her into your home.

It is important that you get some background information on your pet before you take any further action. Was he or she abused in another home? Did the dog get moved around from owner to owner more than three or four times? Is the dog afraid of other dogs because he or she is smaller than most of them, or was picked on by others during its stay at a shelter? All of these are questions that you should ask the previous owner or caretaker of your new pet, because it will explain some things for you, such as why your dog is afraid of people or why you shouldn't take your dog for a ride in the car for an extended period of time. Every piece of information you have about your pet is another piece of ammunition that you can use to fight your dog's shyness.

Adjusting a dog to living with others and enabling him or her to trust you as a new owner is a gradual process; do not try to rush it by overwhelming your dog with a surprise "house-warming" party the very day it arrives at your home. You don't want to scare your dog too much by having a myriad of people wall wanting to hold it, handing the dog off from person to person that he or she doesn't know, and making too much noise around it. Respect your dog's timid nature and give it some time to learn its way around your house, get adjusted to your daily schedule, and most importantly, to get to know you as an owner.

Living with a rather timid dog myself, I know how important trust is to a pet. When a pet is bounced around from home to shelter to foster home, he or she never truly knows who is going to be taking care of him or her next, or whether or not the current owner will be the owner for much longer. Oddly enough, pets who have not had the same owner for more than a third of their lives at a time or who have been abandoned will form the idea in their

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