It is common in shelter and rescue dogs yet it is all too often ignored: fear. Finding information on how to help shy, under-socialized, withdrawn dogs can be a challenge. Should you give the dog time and space? Nudge her into uncomfortable situations? These are questions I wrestled with when I adopted my own pup suffering from “shelter shock.”

While at the shelter he was so odd he was given the name Bates, as in Norman, of Psycho fame. Simon, as he is now known, hovered at the extreme end of the shyness scale and was on the cusp of losing all hope of connecting with a loving family. Even though he licked walls to avoid looking at me, yelped and fought going out for a walk and finally urinated on the shelter floor when I touched him, I decided to adopt the weird dog known as Bates, determined to show him a different world.