Jahzara was one of our Greyhounds. She was born in April 2002. We fostered her starting in October 2003 and officially adopted her two months later. We lost her in May 2012.

She taught me a lot. And I like to sometimes reflect on the things I have learned from my dogs.

The Suit Story has a few lessons to go along with it.

If you've read some of the other blog posts about Jahzara, you might already know that she was very afraid of everyone when she first arrived. People, dogs, everyone.

She warmed up to me quickly. But she did not warm up to my husband quickly. It was a good two months before she would approach him.

Though she did eventually warm up to Ed, she was never as completely trusting of him as she was of me.

One day, we discovered something interesting.

Ed had to put on a suit – or at least dress slacks and a shirt and tie. When he exited from the walk-in closet, she ran away from his as if he were Freddy Krueger. You would have thought we were back at day one. Where did that come from?!

We discovered that each time Ed had to get dressed up, she would not go near him. Wearing a suit, or slack and shirt and tie, would make her afraid of the guy who she was fine with five minutes earlier in shorts and t-shirts.

That lasted her entire life. Any time he had to get dressed up, she would avoid him like the Plague.

You might have guessed by now that Ed did not get dressed up very often! Based on Jahzara's reaction, that was a very good thing.

If he had to dress up every day for work, then she might have acclimated to it and overcome that fear. But since he rarely dressed up, we didn't feel it was worth putting a huge amount of effort into.

What lessons did we learn?

Lesson #1. Give shy or fearful dogs the opportunity to approach on their own time. When Ed did have to dress up, we never forced her near him. We let her have her space and avoid if needed. If she wanted to approach, she could, but we never forced it. That would have made things worse, not better.

Lesson #2. Context can make ALL the difference. What might seem inconsequential to us, might be very much so to a dog. That one change in context – what Ed was wearing – made all the difference between whether Jahzara was comfortable with Ed or very afraid of him.

Lesson #3. What the heck happened in her previous life with guys dressed up? I am willing to bet that something happened at least once, but probably more than just once.

Lesson #4. Make your husband get dressed up and take you out on a real date more often. If he had to dress up regularly, it would have been easier to work on overcoming that particular fear. And since he rarely had to get dressed up for work purposes, then I could have created another reason for him to get dressed up!

For fearful dogs, keep a close eye on even slight changes in context. Sometimes changes that we think of as non-issues can actually be HUGE issues for our dogs.

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