Scared, shy, who knows

Question
Our 3-year old female Alaskan Husky named Keen is driving us nuts.  We adopted her out of a musher's yard at the age of 2.5, five months ago.  We have three other dogs:  an 8 y.o. female pointer x (the ruler of the house - actually, that's the male cat), a 12 y.o. Alaskan husky male adopted from the same yard when he was 10, and a 2.5 y.o. border collie x female, who is very playful.  The 12 y.o. husky took several months to adjust the move in but is a pretty normal pet now.  The other two are pets.  We are familiar with the musher's yard and the dogs are treated well - but unfortunately never exercised unless they are running in the team.  Keen's littermates are all well socialized (with dogs, people, kids) and confident, although both of her parents are very skittish around people so I'm assuming a genetic component to her behaviour.  Before we adopted Keen she was very aggressive with other females (all intact) in the dog yard.  She would initiate fights when she got off her chain and cause injury.  She is no longer aggressive and has never been aggressive with our dogs.  She submits to the older female and plays well with all three, they're a very stable happy bunch.  She is now fixed, and has been for 3 months, which we think helps with the aggression.  Note that it was not fear aggression - she ran around the dog yard starting fights when she could have easily escaped, with her tail held high, ears up, head up.  She hasn't really shown much prey drive with the cat and is respectful of him.  She gets along well and normally with the numerous other dogs we interact with.  Before we adopted her, she became very affectionate with us, and would confidently jump up and receive affection.  She enjoys being carried around (she's small at 38 pounds).  There are no men in the household.  She is Yvonne's dog - we each sort of have two.  Keen has become obsessed with and frightened (?) of Yvonne.  She always has to be watching Yvonne.  On walks, she will often heel Yvonne or follow directly behind her, stepping on her heels.  Keen approaches guests and will be affectionate with them, often while watching Yvonne.  Yvonne rarely disciplines Keen and we've been working on building a relationship between them using positive interactions, treats, etc.  Keen is not scared of the vacuum cleaner or the normal triggers.  However, she will not approach Yvonne in the house, and if gently approached, she sometimes urinates in fear while running up the stairs.  She is housetrained.  If Yvonne walks by ignoring her, Keen runs away.  She would jump up on the couch beside the cat, who would swipe her, instead of allowing Yvonne to calmly walk several meters away from her.  She does not respond this way to me - she allows me to approach and will come to me generally, even though she will often be staring wide-eyed at Yvonne as she does it. About once a week she won't eat her food, sometimes she'll go back to it when I say "Keen eat your grub" which she now knows.  But sometimes she won't touch it and we take it away after a minute or two.  She always eats well the next meal.  She's slim but healthy.  We have tried getting Yvonne to completely ignore her for several weeks, we've tried teaching her a trick for when we walk by (sit and shake a paw) to retrain the running reaction - thinking it might be that she associated punishment with confusion.  Nothing makes any difference.  But the constant running around whenever we're moving in the house - it's pretty frustrating.  Generally she's doing this while the other three dogs are sleeping or laying down doing their thing.  We exercise the dogs daily.  It's hard to know what to do, since she doesn't really exhibit the normal fearful behaviours - not frightened of guests, etc.  Some loud sharp noises scare her into action, or if one of us quickly moves she sometimes will react.  She also goes through phases of a few days or a week where she is much improved, and calmer.  But then she'll slip back into the running around the house all day, urinating up the stairs.  She often lays on the carpet in the middle of the room, watching Yvonne with alert, wide open eyes.  She is a really weird combination of very scared and very confident.  We need to help her calm down so she can loll about like the other dogs instead of prancing around all day.  Once we were puppy-sitting over night and she ran up to the puppy and urinated on the carpet right in front of it - a marking, very stinky urination!  Gak!  I'm a bit worried about using some of the more extreme techniques I read about for instilling confidence in fearful dogs (playing tug and letting her win) since she's weirdly confident and I don't want a monster.  But we need to be doing something and seeing some improvement.  She's not scared of Yvonne - in the truck, she'll move behind Yvonne and smell her ears or hair, and particularly outside she'll run up and take treats and jump up for affection.  Any thoughts?

Answer
Dear Kristi,

Thanks for the question and the detailed information.

No doubt, there are some genetic components to her behavior. I wish you were near me, I'd love to work with you guys. I have many many ideas on how to help, but can't share them here. Here are some things to try.

Start a massage program. Buy the book, Canine Massage, A Complete Reference Manual.

Change her diet to that of a senior dog. Make sure it's a quality diet- no corn, no by-products and no flour. Find one that's 18 protein. For the first three days, remove one fifth of her daily portion and replace it with cooked white rice. The idea is to feed a high quality diet - increase the carbs, decrease the protein. IF this is to prove helpful, you'll notice a change in her behavior within 2-5 days. If it is helpful, you'll continue the higher-quality senior diet, but you can stop using the rice.

Another environmental change is to fashion an anxiety wrap, using a sweatshirt and a Ace Wrap bandage to keep it relatively snug against her body. Visit http://www.anxietywrap.com for more information.

Good Luck!
AT
http://howsbentley.com