GSD behavior

Question
Someone wants to give me a 4 yr old GS female, she is a rescue but has lived with this family for 2 years.  Exposed to other pets, non-aggressive.  She is loyal to the man of the house and has adapted to wife and midteen children.  However she is very timid.  It is suspected of abuse or neglect.  She is double registered akc, uk and is of smaller version with the dark points as she comes direct from Germany.  They want her to go to a good home because she is a very good dog, not a barker, but she is very timid to strangers.  I have trained dogs in the past and would like a dog to train agility, play and simple companion. She is an indoor/outdoor dog. Do you think some of her timidness can be corrected with slow exposure to new things?  I have no other pets as I just lost my golden of 10 yrs.  Do you think having her by herself will only enhance her timidness?  Thank you  

Answer
Hi, if she is 4 years old, and has been in a home for 2 years after being displaced before, sticking her in another home will just enhance her timidness more.  She would probably make a good single companion dog for a single person as she would probably bond very strongly to one person (after about 4-6 weeks), but she would never come out of the timidness enough to do agility.  Her age equavilency is that of about a 30-40 yr old person, so she is more set in her ways and her mentality is more set in the way she is.  It is a lot harder at that age to change them when it comes to temperment issues.  Hope this helps,

Dawn