I need some advice with one of my girls she is nearly 1 year old, has always been a shy timid girl and very nervous, we have done our upmost to try and solve this since she was a baby, have done training etc, she gets plenty of love and attention, is well socialised, but if you move too quickly around her she jumps back and cowers as if she thinks you are going to hit her i have had her all her life and she has never been hit by us and to the very best of my knowledge nobody else has ever hit her.  ( we cant seem to get to the bottom of why she is like this, :(  her parents and litter mates are all very confident, loving dogs with no problems at all)  We have learnt to cope with her shyness and timidness so far by just being gentle around her and giving her all the love and attention she needs with the hope that she will eventually grow out of it. going by what our vet and trainer have previously said she should do eventually.   She is currently half way through her first season. We are waiting for this to end so that we can have her spayed. Although im not sure if having her spayed will help her or make her worse
My main problem is that this afternoon as i was going into the kitchen i went to stroke her head as i always do with all my dogs and she bit me no reason for it and no warning. she has never done this before and it completely shocked me. luckily it wasnt too bad she only nicked the skin and i have abit of a bruise, but my main concern is the children if she bit me purely for giving her abit of attention. what if she bites one of them and does some damage ?
Im trying to think of all the possible reasons why she did this? could it just be her hormones with being in season?  Could it be due to my other girl having a litter of pups at the moment along with her being in season?
I know she is perfectly healthy as she was only checked over by the vet last night when we picked up her worm and flea treatment and has been given a clean bill of health, my vet has mentioned it could possibly be a mental problem, but our trainer disagrees, this situation is breaking my heart as she is such a lovely dog but i am at the point where i dont know what to for the best anymore.
Do i persevere with her training etc in the hope that she will grow out of it or am i taking too big a risk keeping her around the children?
Right now i feel like such a failure :( 
sorry about the long post
KwackerZ9

It could very well be her season especialy as it's her first one, she will be rather like child going through puberty & we girls know all about that don't we :(

I had a little rescue who was very very timid & if anyone even sneezed she ran & hid as if she was being threatened. After she was spayed(living in an all male dog home I wouldn't take any chances)she slowly improved & eventually relaxed, she was never a brave dog(except when the local straying "stud"labrador tried mating her 7 years after she was spayed when she chased him all the wy to where he lived) but she certainly was much better

we certainly do moonmaiden :(
as i say i am really hoping it is just her season and she calms down after and once she been spayed, she is such an adorable girl on a normal day even given her problems it jus shocked me so much that she actually bit me it is so out of character for her :(

I know you have said she has a clean bill of health - but i was just wondering if your vet did a really full examination of her eyes. Perhaps she can't see out of a corner or something. But other wise if her eyes are good it could be her season. Have you ever looked at ttouch. It is doing wonders for my two dogs at the moment and I have read success stories about dogs who have bitten before. May be worth a look.

All the best
Anna

Just wondered if her eye sight is OK?

i read what you said and have been there my 20 month old tess is the same , shes never been hit by myself or my oh ( we got her at 11 weeks old) she gets all the love and attention she wants but if anyone moves a bit quick she jumps up and hide , any noise and shes running for cover and yes she has nipped me too,yes she is timid and shy too and trys the big bully bit but ends up with her tail between her legs and will hide if she can , she was spaded in august (12th) and does "time out" for a few mins (normally about 2 mins) in the kitchen.
  we are trying to bare with it and hope that she chages now shes been spaded , she has done all the training and hid behind the chair most of the time . she even got the "clean bill of health" from our vet too but we got told it might be something in her head that makes her like this , i know this sounds bad but if i have to go upstairs for anything i put her in her crate while i go and do what ever it is i have to as i dont trust her fully with my children sad to say . but i love my tessy girl to bits

devishly shell, have you had her eyes checked?  After having a dog who certain people thought had a behaviour problem although I never did I found out when just having the general eye test that she is partially blind in one eye.  Your dogs symptoms and signs are similar to what my girl was like.

I'm hopig with appropriate training that we will work things out.

yes we had everything checked now we're going to take her to a behavour specialist our vet is sending us to

When you say that you've had everything checked have you been to a specialist?  The specialist that I saw didn't write down which side Carmen was affected and I was so shocked at the time I didn't ask.  I went to my vets a few days later and the vet couldn't tell which eye was the problem, so I'm no further as I need to know to start training her proiperly!

Here is a bit about the dog that ttouch has helped.

http://www.tellingtontouch.co.uk/index.php?f=data_case_studies&a=0

If you scroll down to the part about the golden cocker called "B" it is a indepth paragraph on how it has helped this particular dog.

Best Wishes
Anna

All dogs have different characters and personalites some are bolder some quieter, when you think about it this is predicted almost from birth, you can easily pick out the bolder pups and the quieter shyer pups in a litter at just a few weeks old. All dogs in a pack have different pecking orders, if they were all the same there would be constant fighting, it is the way of the world as with us, some are bold leaders others are confident but not leaders and some are followers and like to be quiet in the background.

Your girl was proberbly at the bottom of the pecking order in the litter and so takes that stance with everything, some dogs are naturally nervous.

Just keep building up her confidence, let her win at games you play, she will proberbly never be a bold outgoing bitch, but she will improve with age.

The biting incident sounds to be due to her season, some bitches can get extremely fractious and snappy, of course it is unaceptable for her to do that and you need to tell her so, keep the children away from her whilst in season, and perhaps spaying her will help with this.

Keep up the training, she doesn't have a mental problem, it is just her character, gosh if we labled all humans who were shy and nervous as mental She is what she is!

thanks for your opinions and advice, she has had her eyes checked by the vet but as mentioned it may be worth me just getting them checked by a specialist so i will contact my vet on monday and organise this,
I fully agree with carrington i dont believe for one minute that she has a mental problem at all and neither does her trainer, her trainer like you has said it just seems to be her natural make up so to speak and in time she will grow out of most of it and get better with time although she believes like you she will never be the boldest of dogs and will always have a shy timid side to her.
All we can do in the mean time is keep a close eye on her and the situation and give her all the love and support we can :)

KwackerZ9, please, please try not to feel like a failure! I'm sure you're not, you couldn't be if you have 3 rotts, I should know, I'm owned by them too! Sometimes you need nerves of steel and the patience of an angel.

I've found that sometimes, things happen, and you can't figure out why, regardless of how many times you 're-live' it. I doubt it's a 'mental' thing.

It may just purely be that her hormones are in overdrive and she has a bad case of PMT, or maybe you caught her unaware, there are lots of reasons 'why'. But the main thing is keep on with the training and socialisation, but make sure YOU stay positive and try to carry on as normal. I've found rotts are very sensitive to how you're feeling. But just keep an extra eye on her if you can and try, again if you, can to watch her body language. You can gauge alot of things by watching body language!

If you want a chat PM me, I know these things can make us feel awful, but I'm sure you'll both be fine.

My bitch is going through her first season[9mths old] at the moment and has suddenly become very clingy and won't have anything to do with my Mum who she sees most days unless I pick her up and put her in Mum's arms. Normally she is really bold approaches anyone no bother, I am hoping this is just a hiccup due to the season and not some permanent change. I can't wait to get her out and about again to see if she is back to her normal self.
The only change otherwise is my male is staying at my Mum's round the corner till the season is over. Hormones have a lot to answer for.

Rhona

The specialist that I saw didn't write down which side Carmen was affected and I was so shocked at the time I didn't ask.  I went to my vets a few days later and the vet couldn't tell which eye was the problem, so I'm no further as I need to know to start training her proiperly!

perrodeagua, specialists usually send a report to the referring vet to let them know what they found so hopefully your vet should be able to tell you from the report. If they haven't sent one i would chase it up  as it is something useful to have in their records.

As that isn't wat I went for in the eye test he didn't write it down :rolleyes:  So unfortunately it looks as though I'll have to wait until another eye testing session and have her checked again then!  Oh and as it wasn't a referral from my vet just an eye test that I went for the copy for my vet is only given by me if he requires it but he doesn't usually bother.