I adopted an anxious Romanian dog

In the middle of the night in the week before Christmas 2022, a new dog arrived in our west London home, a replacement for Cabbage, our beloved Collie cross who had died at the beginning of the year.

Sophie – she had been called Seven but I said I wasn’t going to bellow that across the park like some demented Strictly Come Dancing judge – had been on a van for three days with two dozen other Romanian dogs destined for British homes.

As she was deposited in my arms on our doorstep it was clear that she was absolutely terrified and once we got her inside, she quickly scuttled behind a sofa and stayed there. The next morning when I tried to take her for the early walk that had become part of my exercise regime since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, she dug in her paws and refused to budge.

We weren’t too worried at first – Cabbage had also been a rescue dog, albeit from a nearby Dogs Trust rescue centre, and had been pretty nervous at first.

But as the days and weeks passed we seemed to make little progress. After a month she did start going out into our back garden and from then on was house-trained, which was a relief. But for six months Sophie spent every night and 90 per cent of her day behind the sofa and did not dare explore the house beyond the living room.

It was only when after six months our vet prescribed the anti-anxiety medicine fluoxetine, better known as Prozac, that she began to relax. Even then, it was not until February 2024, 14 months after her arrival, that she left the house for her first walk. Today, while we now walk Sophie a couple of times a day, she remains a work in progress, still frightened by loud noises and even moderately crowded places.

While we love her dearly and would never give her up, we realise that we should have been better prepared to deal with a nervous rescue dog. So here are some of the lessons we have learnt.

Know the dog you are getting

There are all sorts of questions that you need to ask when choosing a rescue dog: are they content to be left alone when you leave your home, do they get along with children or with other dogs, are they happy to live in an urban area?

We found that UK charities were almost too frank in describing the drawbacks of the pets they were advertising. By contrast the Romanian charity’s advert for Sophie read simply “Seven loves everybody and is just looking for her for ever home.” The UK-based Romanian couple who ran the charity were lovely people absolutely devoted to saving dogs – and they had promised to take Sophie back if we didn’t get on – but they did tend to accentuate the positive.

Ideally, you should meet your dog before deciding to adopt. That is going to be hard if the dog is from overseas, but some charities lodge dogs with temporary British foster parents so prospective owners can meet them.

Wait to walk

For me, almost the whole point of getting a new dog was to take it for a walk. Our previous dog Cabbage had been extraordinarily energetic in her youth, needing three walks a day, which had been good for me. I had taken up running in middle age with her, and then as we both slowed down, she was the reason to get up before 7 o’clock and get out for a walk – people with Parkinson’s know that exercise is almost as important as drugs in keeping their symptoms at bay.

But we learned that Sophie, rescued by a young vet after being part of a litter of puppies dumped by the roadside, had then been kept in a barn by the vet’s father for months. She had not been mistreated but she hadn’t been taken for walks – so the outside world was a pretty frightening place for her.

Any dog may be reluctant to be hauled out for a walk the moment they get to their new home, so let them settle in first. But, again, it is important to know what the dog’s history is when it comes to walking.

Get help

Caring for a frightened dog can feel very lonely but you don’t have to cope alone – there is plenty of help available out there.

We were lucky in that Sophie’s instant social media fame brought us many offers of advice. Just days after we got her Sophie was trending on Twitter, her story apparently capturing the public imagination at a dark time when the Ukraine war and the cost of living crisis were dominating the headlines.

We quickly zeroed in on Si Wooler, a dog behaviour expert based in North East Scotland who has been the key to any success we have had in calming our dog’s fears. Si believes that the way to change behaviour is through rewards not punishment – beware of trainers who advocate shock collars and other inhumane training methods.

We also found it very useful to share experiences and ask questions in a couple of Facebook groups, notably one aimed at owners of Romanian rescue dogs.

Prepare for the long haul

In our early days with Sophie, people kept repeating what we came to think of as the “3:3:3 mantra” – it takes three days for a dog to decompress from their journey, three weeks for them to adapt to the household’s routines, three months to feel completely at home.

But three months went by and Sophie had barely got over her journey and her routine involved living behind the sofa. When people warned that it could take a year or more to settle a dog in, I thought to myself that I just would not be able to put up with that. But as the American dog behaviourist Jean Donaldson explained to me, fear is the easiest thing to install in a dog and the hardest thing to get rid of.

I am not the most patient of people but Sophie has taught me that you have to move at the pace set by the dog.

Learn to love the dog you have

I think we all have a picture in our mind of our ideal dog – mine was a lovable mongrel racing to retrieve the ball I have flung across a sandy beach, diving into her bowl the second I drop a couple of sausages in it, then snuggling up to me on the sofa as I watch television.

But one of the best bits of advice I got was from a friend who told me I had to learn to love the dog that I have, not the one in my dreams.

Sophie is terrified of the beach, uninterested in chasing balls, none too fussed about food and has only made her way onto our sofa (rather than behind it) a couple of times. Yet when she began to let me scratch her behind the ears, then gave me her paw when I stopped as if to say “you can carry on’’, tears came to my eyes. It must be love…

Sophie From Romania: A Year of Love and Hope with a Rescue Dog is out now