Once Wild Pup a Good Family Pet?

They are so very young, if it were me I wouldn't find this to be an issue. Lots of love and treat her right I think she would make a great pet. In my opinion it's not unusual for puppies to be scared of new people and situations they are just babies and can grow out of it.

My current dog was like you describe, except we got him at about 9 months. He was afraid of everything, especially men. When we got him home, we started off being nice. We'd pet and comb and brush. I had treats beside my chair and I would feed him treats between TV programs. He was so used to being abused he would cower whenever we reached down to pet him.

Because we treated him so nice he would follow is around so close his chin would hit our heels as we walked around the house. My wife remarked that "He follows me around like a little shadow." And that's how he got his name. I worked with him and pretty soon he was "Dad's dog". Its been that way ever since.

I have had two pound rescued dogs. Both of them were probably abused by men because they were scared of me, but not of my wife.

Kindness works wonders with dogs and kids. I swat my kids to get their attention if all else fails, but after the swats I love and hug and let them know I love my kids, but hate what they do sometimes.

Shadow is wonderful with my grandkids. I had to teach him how to act around the grandkids and I had to teach the grandkids how to act around him. But he is a wonderful grandkids dog. When he has enough of the playing, he comes and sits on my shoes. I then tell him to jump up and sit in my lap. I tell my grandkids that shadow is in "timeout". When he calms down he jumps off my lap and runs off to play.

He has been in situations when we had 12+ kids over here and Shadow has never bit a child or an adult. Not even the ones playing in his food dish.

Good luck to you and yours.

theyre too young to not be able to change.. work with her.. my cousin rescued her pitbull .. he was found left on a roadside in a box with a few others from the litter at around 6 weeks also she took him to a couple of training classes.. hes still a little hyper when you first walk in the house but hes still only a year old.. hes the sweetest dog on earth.. her 3 yr old nephew lives in the same house and that dog is so good with him that kid climbs all over him n pulls his ears n what not and never gets so much as a bark or a growl.. theyre puppies theres absolutley no reason why you should think that because shes still a little shy that you should be afraid to adopt her .. give that dog some love, shell come around
.. not going to lie the answers of people telling you its a bad idea honestly make me angry.. its a puppy for gods sake not a 6yr old massive rottwieler or something that was trained as a guard dog your trying to adopt geez
..just because this dog was a rescue means nothing, esp. that its so young.. my 10yr old lab was not a rescue we got him from a breeder when he was 8weeks.. he was an absolute nightmare ..the puppy from hell bit everyone ate/chewed anything in sight, jumped all over you, he would ever try to rip you shoes right off your feet and eat them.. its a wonder my mom didnt just take him to a shelter one day or try to give him back to the breeder.. once he got out of the puppy stage he calmed down, we had a trainer come to our house and show us how to handle him and now he is the sweetest big teddy bear of a dog you will ever meet.. i sware he thinks hes a little lap dog.. loves attention and is afraid of his own shadow, he has no idea hes 110lbs

We adopted a pup at about 4 months that had had virtually no socialization..... they had to literally tackle him to catch him for us.... the litter had been hidden, and they didn't know there were pups until about 4 months.

It took us a while, but he has turned out to be a good dog... he knows "pack" rules, since that is what he grew up with... he does come to us for affection and loving.... he doesn't avoid us in any way..... there is no resource guarding, or fear biting. He does know a lot of commands, and if we worked more with him I'm sure he would be better. He is now about 5 years old, I think.....

I have a feeling we were lucky with some of that, but I would think that since they have been with humans from a much younger age, that things will turn out ok.

i agree with LivTokyo - 6 weeks old is so young. i don't see any reason she couldn't turn into an amazing dog. but it would depend on your level of experience and your comfort level. if you're not comfortable, don't go there, because being afraid of your own dog or not trusting her (ever) is not going to be good for you or her.

I wouldn't take the chance with my kids' safety.

As a parent, I believe it's my job to play the best odds of safety as possible for my little men in order to get them to 18 in the same basic condition, if not better, than I found them in.

It's called the campsite rule. Never leave a campsite worse off than you found it.

Since a dog brought into ownership the standard way has less of a chance of attacking my kid than one brought in from the wild - that rules out the wild one if my family is going to have a dog.

I might accept the risk of owning a dog, but I'm not going to increase the risk (pecentage wise) to my kids. I.e. dogs attack kids 1:100,000 dog owning families. Wild dogs turned pet attack kids 1:10,000.

I have a lot of experience with fearful dogs, although all of the ones I've worked with have been adults, not puppies. Whether fear becomes aggression depends on the dog's personality as well as your training techniques. Get a crate so that the puppy will have a safe place to go, and do not invade that space. You will probably need to read up on and even work with a trainer experienced in confidence training, because doing certain things like pushing a dog too hard or too fast, or rewarding fearful behavior, can make the behavior worse.

Having said that, some dogs are just shy. This pup sounds like a very good candidate, and buying a dog from a breeder comes with no guarantees that the dog will not have confidence issues. Most dogs with these issues are not born feral, so I wouldn't let that be a huge concern.

ETA: Personally, I would be willing to take the pup on, and you haven't mentioned anything that makes alarm bells sound in my head. But I don't know your experience with dogs or your resources. You will have to make a decision with your gut, and only you can decide what is right for your family. Good luck.

I think living wild for 6 weeks, assuming the vet has been all over the dog, is less of an issue than the dog being re-housed so many times. Living wild, then being found, now being in foster care, and now possibly moving to another state. Those are all stressors.

We rescued an 18 month old dog who had been ill cared for (no discipline), given up, adopted, returned by the 2nd family, put in a dog pound, rescued from euthanasia by a wonderful humane society, put with another little dog who got adopted which caused stress for the one left behind, and then she was put in foster care. We adopted her but we do not have little kids and we work at home so could provide constant care. She had some food aggression and a big fat fear of abandonment. We were approved because we knew her breed (she is a Cairn terrier mix and we had had a Cairn for 14 years). It took vigilance to get rid of the food aggression and a long time to integrate her into the neighborhood. She's now wonderful but still can't be boarded if we go away (which we've only done twice in 10 months) - we have to have someone stay with her in our house so she doesn't have to leave her home and be without us.

So, I would suggest that those puppies get vet clearance and then be given to some people who can visit them in foster care, take the puppy of their choice out for a few walks and maybe a car ride, and gently ease it into their own home and life.

If you want a dog, I would suggest you go to a local shelter where the staff knows the dogs and their personalities, their backgrounds, etc., and where there is a really thorough application process to help make the "match". You can visit, walk, play with the dog, have it get to know you, etc. These dogs all need to go to their "forever homes" with no glitches and no "giving them back if it doesn't work out", and it's really important, in my view, to not transport them over and over again. Many of my neighbors have rescued dogs from far away, and they are all so traumatized that they are loyal only to the family and can't interact with other people and other dogs. I'm talking 4 dogs in one neighborhood. Same sad story. If you have little kids, you are right that a scared dog is a problem. Those puppies might do better with a quieter household and fewer people to bond with - they will most likely need an authority figure and some calm, and a family of kids just doesn't provide it in many cases.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

We once rescued a "wild" dog. It showed up in our yard and spent weeks in the bushes in the front yard and played with our dog whenever he was out. We finally named him "Friend" because he came to us as our dog's friend!

It took us a long time to be able to touch him, but eventually he let us. After that, we got him into the house and that was it - he was ours! BUT he never got over his shyness. The ONLY people who ever touched him was me or my husband. He would hide when anyone else was around. He was never aggressive - never growled or anything of the sort. He would just run and hide!

Being that she is still a puppy, Id say chances are great.
You may need to be willing to get some classes for her and yourselves! If you do get her, socialize her. A lot.
A lot of vets and pet stores offer puppy classes as a start. Find someone who has knowledge about dogs, read books etc.
Also, if you take this dog home, keep a very close eye. Do NOT children around her that do not know how to treat animals. If she is already slightly fearful of strangers, you dont want her being with kids or people who ruff house her, scare her etc. You have to introduce any puppy gently in to their new surroundings. Let her get comfortable and feel safe. But also if you're really not confident that you can handle a possible "problem" pup, maybe reconsider. But really give it some thought.
And most puppies arent handled too much the first few weeks of life anyways. Thats momma's job!

Oh N., my sister's husband did the same thing. The dog bit her daughter and growled at me. Scared me, I will say. After the biting incident, they gave the dog away to a farmer who had a big place. I don't know what happened to Barney after that.

I wouldn't do it. I'm sorry.

Dawn