The background:
I have a 7 month old dachshund mix puppy.
I got Sophie in January when she was 3 months old, she came from what I guess you would call a puppy mill. The dogs and puppies seemed to have been taken care of pretty good, with the exception that they din’t get much socialization with many humans or dogs other than their own kind.
Sophie was kept in a fenced in stall with some of her litter mates.
Apparently because she is not a pure bred she wasn’t given any of her puppy shots. Because of this, I was not able to socialize her with any dog other than one until after her shots were completed . The parvo virus was running wild in my area during the time I got her. I only know about 5 dogs, and two of them were puppies that ended up getting the parvo virus. Because these dogs were taken to the other houses that had dogs I knew, I was not able to take Sophie to those houses or have those dogs in my house to socialize her with. Also, because it was winter and the weather were I live was so cold, not many people were coming over to our house.
The problem:
Sophie barks and jumps all over people that come into my house. When dogs come into my house she barks at them feverishly, hackles goes up, and gets aggressive with them. When we are outside and people or dogs walk by the house she barks like mad and the hackles go up. On walks the same thing happens when a dog barks at her, even if she can’t see it because it is inside of its house. When we come across people on walks she barks and tries to get at them.
There are many dogs in my neighborhood and many people walk their dogs through my neighborhood. I try to walk Sophie everyday, but because of her behavior, it makes the walks difficult. I try to leave the house open minded, and think “this time she won’t behave like a mad dog”, but it never turns out that way.
Will she be like this all of her life now because she missed the socialization period? Is there anything I can do to turn things around?