How to make friend with my shy puppy? please help

[LynnMerron]

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Hello everyone, I am wondering if any one could give me some advice on this. I brought my new 4 months old 3/4 Coton De Tulear 1/4 Lhasa Apso back home 4 days ago. He is such a shy puppy. He would come to me when he sees me and he would follow me around in the house. However, if I walk towards him, he would run away as soon as I get a bit closer. He won't let me pet him either.

I tried to sit on the floor to wait for him to come to me. He would just sit down about 1m away from me. I have also been feeding him food from my hand to get him to come closer to me. He would come to get the food from my hand, but walk a bit further back to eat. I tried to play his soft toy with him, but he seems much perfer playing on his own. We made a lot of progress on toilet training, but I don't think we made much progress on making friends with each other. I read shy and timid puppies will become aggressive if they don't learn how to socialise. I am really worried.

 

[sophieleah]

Personally, I would say your doing the right thing! You need to make sure that your puppy associates contact = good, and forcing it will definitely not be the right way to go about it.

I would be interested to read replies from people with more knowledge than me, to understand why your puppy is like this in the first place though!

Good luck, I'm sure you and your puppy are going to end up best of friends with commitment and patience

 

[Shewbert]

Be patient, he will come to you when he is ready, your doing the right thing, when watching the tv etc, sit on the floor with treats in your hand,

let him see the treats, but he only gets one when he comes for it, and give a quiet Good Boy when he received his treat.

In the early days try different treats until you know which ones he really likes then eventually you will know what his favourite one is, then only give this as a treat, do not give his treat for anything else than praise. through time he will let you scratch his ear as you say good boy.

Time, patience and lots of love is all he needs

Please keep us informed on his progress.

Shewy

 

[gypsysmum]

It sounds as if he wasn't handled much by his breeder. Some breeders get very blasé about their puppies as time goes. At first they are all over them but then they just leave them to play with each other and do not handle them enough.

You have a tough time ahead of you but you are doing all the right things. Never force him to accept your handling always wait for him to be ready for it. Sometimes they make a huge leap and become trusting over night but sometimes it takes longer. Making yourself small by sitting down with him is good. Feeding him by hand is good too. Just tiny baby steps is the way to go with him.

He will need lots of socialising and there is a window of up to 14 weeks when this is critical. Try to find a trainer, registered with the APDT, to help you through this. The work you put in now will pay huge dividends in the future if you want a happy, confident pet.