@Changeling - that's beautiful.
Thank you
@Anrish. I am also a bit delayed in my updates about this amazing creature so my apologies.
Update:
The last week Hank is able to walk more on the hardwood floors now.
He knows 'sit', 'stay', 'down' and 'come' (kind of).
He is relaxing more when I put my hand over his head to put on his leash and sweater and he will only flinch a bit now instead of the full out fear and pee he was having before.
He lets me touch his paws all over now because I have been using the peanut butter method and he absolutely loves it. Now he will give me a paw when I ask him to 'sit'. Sometimes when it's quiet at night I will sit with him and just touch his paws and ears and sing softly to him. He gives me the 'soul' look, the sqeezy, soft eyes.
He has done really well when we encounter other leashed dogs. For the first few weeks he would hide behind my legs and try to run when we passed another dog.
So now I have worked on 'on by' with him and it's been working like a charm. When we see another leashed dog, I just happily chirp 'on by' and we cross the street and keep walking.
He seems very happy when I do this and he pays attention to me and keeps the pace as we walk on by. I have taken him to see other leashed dogs in the park and he is ok but he doesn't want to play and it seems a bit overwhelming to him still so we don't stay long. So right now I am working on getting his confidence up so he can see that he is dealing well with these situations but I do limit the situations and the time we spend in them.
The problem for him outside right now is unleashed dogs.
I live in an area with a lot of dogs and some of the people don't leash them. They seem to be nice people and nice dogs but it really scares the crap out of Hank. He will cower and then the other day we had one fly at us and Hank actually screamed.
The woman was so upset that she had upset Hank that she kept yelling, 'my dog is friendly, my dog is friendly'. I said, 'your dog may be friendly but mine doesn't know that and it's scaring the crap out of him'. I put my body between her dog and Hank and moved Hank away chirping 'on by' making sure Hank's back wasn't exposed to the other dog.
Another time we had a dog come over and start snarling and trying to jump Hank - the person was nowhere to be seen. We were on a heavy traffic street and my worry was if I intimidated the dog I would scare it into oncoming traffic and I certainly didn't want that.
I did get my body into the dog and managed to scare him off with air kicks (Krav Maga came in handy). Finally I saw the person coming and he actually told me his dog was trying to attack because Hank was on a leash. I told him that he didn't need to care at all about my dog but his dog could have been hurt flying around like that without a leash so close to high volume traffic.
I do want Hank to have exposure to the outside and he is doing so well with the leashed dogs but I honestly don't understand why one would walk a dog without a leash in a fairly high traffic city with all kinds of dangers around.
After these situations have come up I take Hank to the parkette and we have a little routine we do where he 'runs' in and out of cement dividers with me. He loves doing it and it's a way I can have him finish his walk on a win. I give him cheese treats and we head home.
I have him sit when I am getting the key in the door and I enter the house before him. I think I am understanding the way alpha works with dogs and especially when alpha has been really badly messed up in their lives. He is responding so well and I think that I finally understand that being alpha for him means he finally gets to relax and be a dog for the first time in his life. I also know he doesn't expect perfection, only love, patience, understanding, gentleness and firmness to help him master those demons that were put inside him and ones over which he had no control.
Then last night someone came to the door with a flyer. For the first time he pricked up his ears, cocked his head to the side and barked. Then he looked at me really quickly with such a look of utter and complete 'dogness' that I lost it and started the sobbing again.
...This miracle of broken bones, fractured teeth and missing fur that is just now coming in like a soft brushcut, who trusts me and believes we are both worth this life together...
