So we got a dog last year in April. She was a surrender Aussiedoodle. She's the happiest, most playful dog ever, and she loves everyone and every dog. She about 15 months old. For a while we've been talking about getting another dog because she really needs a companion.
We got a male American Shepherd from our groomer, which she breeds. He's a little older than our dog, at about a year and 9 months. The groomer basically said he hasn't been socialized at all (I guess he just stays at home and plays with his parents, siblings, and cousins all day), but is super playful.
We had them meet a week ago and they ran around the groomers yard and had a blast. We got him Sunday, and it's now Thursday evening. He's scared of everything. Every noise, everything around the house. Our dog loves bubbles and one popped near him and he got startled. He'll play fetch a little, but if there are any outside noises he's done and wants inside. And once inside, he basically sits in one 10' radius all day. He will occasionally move around the house to explore the entrances to rooms, but quickly runs back to the safe spot. We were really hoping at some point he'd get used to the new surroundings and explore, but he just seems scared of it all.
I tried doing confidence drills with him by taking food and treats to get him to explore, but it doesn't seem to help. And my wife took him on a walk yesterday that sounded like it went okay, but not much progress today. We probably pushed our luck, because she walked him again today and a school bus's air brakes went off and got scared shitless and he wanted to run back to our house.
Is this dog just forever broken? My wife was always talking about socializing our dog, and I didn't quite grasp how important it is. I'm now seeing what a broken dog looks like. My wife originally wanted to give him two weeks to acclimate, but as he's not even showing small signs of improvement we're worried he's just not going to be compatible (we travel frequently, and for a dog that's scared of everything I'm afraid that'd be torture).
If anyone has any ideas that we can try over the next couple days, I'm all ears.