What Am I NOT Afraid Of?

It became apparent very quickly that there was not very much that Annie was not afraid of, aside from being with other dogs. The list is long, but these were the readily evident fears:

Going Through an Open Doorway
Under no condition would she cross a door threshold on her own. She would get as far as the edge and then freeze. Any attempt to move towards her and take her across was met with an instant dashing away as far as she could get from you. My research said this could be a problem as they seldome get out of their cages, except to be put into a room for breeding purposes. And in many cases that was achieved by kicking or pushing with your feet. To get her into the house was always a production, as she preferred to stay outside. If she could have her way, she would never come inside. Even in the pouring rain and in terror she would run when lightening and thunder struck, but she would not cross that threshold. She instead began to dig out a crawl hole under the front porrch, where she would back herself in, face forward. I am fortunate that she did not take to biting, or I do nto know how I could have gotten her out. Barricading the crawl space was ineffective and she would find somehwere else to build a burrow. To get her into the house was always a game of chasing her, until she would simply submit by hunkering to the ground and going dead weight. I recall many times telling her as I would carry her (the option was to drag her as she would simply be frozen into a rigid state of fear), up hill, sometimes the full 3 acres of property, that she would be the cause of my death from a heart attack. Once inside the doorway, she would run to the furthest corner from the door. If the door was opened, she would run at top speed for the slightest opening to get outside. After a few months I installed a doggie door, in the hopes she would get used to the freedome to come and go and not have to go through the chase-me chase-me routine. It took a while, and she had a very curious manner of using the door, by peeking in first tosee if the coast was clear. Later she would chase Clive to the house and then push her head through the doggie door and bark inside.

Fans

Oscillating or ceiling fans always cased her to go in the most round about path to avoid being anywhere near it. A ceiling fan would result in her lowering her body as close to the floor as possible and scampering to an area out of the room preferably, or to a corner, where she would watch the fan. Turning it off was no help. I swear she could spot a fan in a room and in fact I suspect she did a room scan specifically, to see if there was one there in the first place.

Treats
We have a habit of giving the dogs a treat, dental bone or something similar after their dinners. They all know this and await their treats, sometimes barking to remind you that you have not done this yet. In her case, there was simply no way she would take this from my hand. I would have to throw it, which then caused her to cower and run away. This in turn gave the others a chance to run and scoop her treat from the yard. It took many many months to get her to actually stay in sight of me when I arrived with the treat. And then she would only approach the treat if I took myself out of sight and no other dog was present. Despite months of this routine treat giving, she would still only take a treat when it was tossed into an open area and you left the area.

Food
Feeding had to be done the same way as the treats. Put the food in a bowl, place it in an open area and leave. Your presence would keep her at bay from the food. And of course, the others would see this as an opportunity for an extra meal. She was so non-assertive, that she would simply sit and watch as the others would quickly eat her food. Even if she had begun to eat and one of the others showed up, she would leave the dish. This was a problem as the other dogs had a habit of eating from their own dish and then doing a dish rotation of going to the others dishes and snacking on whatever was left. In some ways Annie's bowl was like hitting the jackpot, as it may still be full.

Men
Annie was always leery of men and especially men in fedora or cowboy style hats. I found this out by accident one day in the rain, as I had an Australian Akubra hat that i would put on in the heavy rains when I went to feed the livestock. She had been with us for about three months by then, and was actually getting to the stage of following me around the property, normally at a distance of about 5 meters.. I had yet to see her tail in any position except down or tucked under her belly. It had never been seen wagging, and I thought I would never see the day that it did. She had no problem with approaching with great caution any women that may come by, but she just did not approach a man under any circumstance. By this time she had discovered her capacity to bark and you could always tell if a man had come to the house, as she would let out a bark. It was strange at first as it sounded very strained and pitched. And then one day it seemed that she had discovered she had this capacity and she would use it to full advantage. Normally always at Clive.

Barking at Clive

Many a time, he would go out and I would hear this incessant barking going on and on and on. It was, on occasion, cause for some heated discussion with me to "do something about your daughter". Telling her to be quiet never worked. If you moved towards her she would simply increase the distance and keep barking. My physical presence sometimes had effect, but not always. Normally Clive had to go inside or somewhere out of her sight.