This is Ellie. She’s four, and J and I adopted her in July. She was born in a puppy mill and was forced to have two litters before she was two years old. Then, she was rescued from the puppy mill and lived with a family for another two years. They had to move across the country and couldn’t keep her, so they surrendered her to a rescue agency, from where we adopted her.

Obviously, growing up in a puppy mill means you aren’t well socialized. We adopted her because she matched the kind of dog we wanted and could manage, but raising a rescue dog is challenging. Very challenging. At home, with us, she’s a sweetheart. She’s not a lap dog, but she lets us pick her up and cuddle her. She’s good with commands and she’s good walking on the leash. I can stick my hand in her food bowl when she’s eating and she ignores it. The only problem she has is anxiety. She gets scared easily and barks and can be hard to calm down again. I’ve written about it before, so I won’t get into it again. But here are some issues J and I have been facing lately that are making socializing and training Ellie difficult:

• She’s adorable. This means people think she’s either a puppy or is friendly. I don’t really understand how cute = friendly, but still. This means they think it’s okay to just randomly lean down and try to pet her. Imagine you’re a puppy mill dog. How would a gigantic human looming over you, with their hands out, make you feel?
• We’ve encountered a few people in our local park who have their dogs off-leash but have no control over them. Just today, this insane hyper little dog bounded down the hill towards Ellie, paying no mind to his owner at the top of the hill shouting his name. You can imagine how much Ellie enjoyed that.
• Dogs can wag their tails if they are unhappy. I really want to make that clear. Ellie has wagged her tail, really fast, just before she’s barked and lunged at someone who scared her.
• The worst one: People outright dismiss us when we tell them she’s not friendly. We’ve heard all kinds of things. “Oh, but she’s so cute!” “She’s wagging her tail. This means she’s happy to see me!” “I can tell she likes me.” “I have a dog too; I know about dogs.” We’re considering just lying to people and telling them, “She’ll bite you.”

Now I understand that we’re not perfect dog owners and I also understand that most people approach Ellie in what is a nice, respectful way for most dogs. But when I tell someone, “Careful, she’s afraid of strangers,” and they reply, “You shouldn’t let her be afraid,” I just get so angry. Maybe it’s the Finnish in me, but I would not dream of telling someone how to raise their dog (unless they were obviously abusing it), especially when I have no idea about its history. Why do people seriously not back off when we tell them to? J and I are thinking about getting a muzzle for Ellie to use while we socialize her. It’s awful to think of, but at least people will get out of her face.

Training and socializing Ellie is a slow, often frustrating process. Especially because she’s so good otherwise. I mean, we trained her from day one that the kitchen is off-limits. And she gets it. She doesn’t go in there. But socialization is filled with factors out of our control and this is making it so slow. The other day, after I encountered the “You shouldn’t let her be afraid” woman, Ellie was scared for a whole 30 minutes. She lunged and barked at a very calm, well-mannered dog. I was so frustrated and embarrassed. I hate that Ellie had so many bad things happen to her that still affect her years later. I hate that people see her like this and make the automatic assumption that J and I aren’t taking good care of her. And I hate that so few people in this apartment building filled with dogs understand where we’re coming from.