who Maya was

On June 18th, 2009, we brought Maya home from the shelter.  She was sweet, cautious, impeccably polite, reserved, and had excellent leash manners.

About a month later, the real Maya emerged.  Real Maya was the product of the first seven months of her life -- seven months which had, apparently, included very little interactions with the normal human world.  My best guess is that she was a yard dog -- raised outside, with no exposure to new humans beyond a small group.

Turns out, if you take a high-strung herding/guardian dog, raise her without proper socialization of any sort, and then thrust her into the real world, she becomes a mess. 

Here's what Maya was like for the first 3-6 months.  She was terrified of new things.  Stairs made her cower, the car was her worst nightmare (and made her puke uncontrollably), any stick-like object made her cringe and cower (hammers, brooms, etc...anything you'd hold in your hand).  She was hand-shy, easily startled, and couldn't calm herself down once she started to worry.

Out in the world, things that moved were stressful.  Instead of being quietly cautious, she elected to display massive amounts of threat to anything that moved -- people, dogs, suspicious bushes.  She'd scream, lunge, stand all of her hair on end, bark, growl, and otherwise act like a homicidal hyena.  I think she was hoping to intimidate the entire world into staying perfectly still (or at least, staying well away from her). 

She had no emotional coping skills.  Things were either boring or EXTREMELY OVER EXCITING TO THE POINT OF FRENZY.  No in-between.  She couldn't tolerate frustration, she had no self-control, and once excited, she couldn't calm herself down.  When faced with a complicated situation (AKA any situation), she did not know any appropriate behaviors -- literally her only coping skill was to act scary, and then escalate as needed.  I am happy she never felt the need to escalate to biting (we kept her out of those sorts of situations), but I've no doubt she would have.

She wanted attention.  Not at first -- that initial shut-down period was profound -- but once that wore off, our attention was all she craved.  And she had no appropriate ways to earn it.  She'd whine, then cry, then scream, then shove, then body slam, then climb on top of me and stand there screaming in my face.  She'd pick up objects (toys, shoes) and throw them at my head.  She'd pace, obsess, and work herself up into a frenzy.  And anything I did -- literally anything -- rewarded this behavior.  All I could do was sit perfectly still (sometimes pulling a blanket over my head), and ignore.  Meanwhile, she'd just stand and bark.  I once timed a thirty minute barking session, all aimed screamingly at my face.

She had no leash manners, and once she realized what "walks" were, she couldn't handle them.  A trip outside the house where we might encounter strange things?  Complete emotional meltdown.  As soon as we left the back door, her brain short-circuited and she'd hit the other end of the leash, every nerve on high alert, completely lost to reason or connection.  We had to cancel walks altogether, because once a tantrum started, she had to way to recover.

Bored inside the house, so she'd attention bark relentlessly.  Unable to function outside the house, so no walks or other adventures.  She didn't know what to do with toys, wasn't interested in fetch or other forms of constructive exercise.  Oh, and she wasn't potty-trained, and didn't become so for quite a long time, hated the crate, and panicked (destructively) if left alone.

That was Maya.