[hillelbebop]

My husband and I just adopted a dog from a local shelter. He was to be euthenized on the 19th and so we decided to adopt him. He is super sweet and gentle and very quiet, but we are already having problems with him. We know he was abused by his actions (he cowers when I deiscipline my son, when we raise our voicee, or raise our hands over his head for any reason or the leash). Which is one more reason we want to give him a loving home. Our problem is this... he will not come out of our small kitchen without puutting a leash on him and taking him out, he refuses to budge when I call him or try to get him to come close to us unless we are sitting on the floor, and when he is in the room with us he sits as far away as possible or in a corner. Ut generally he sits in the kitchen next to the back door where he can't see us and we can't see him, making no noise, which concernes me. Ut since he was comfortable there we let him sleep in the kitchen for the night, and immediately after we walked away he started getting in the trash and scratching at the walls, so, in fear of him being scareed of his new surroundings, we put him in our large crate with a blanket and when I woke up this morning he had completely destroyed the blanket and was cowering. We did not scold him, just cleaned it up and went back to sleep. Im not used to destructive dogs, all the dogs I've had are very well behaved. But he will not listen to us and im not sure what to do. Any suggestions? He is a chocolate lab/rott mix 2 yrs old. And before you say its in a labs nature I have an 8 yr old full bred chocolate lab that is absolutelly the most well behaved dog ever (although super hyper)