two year update on the eight pound chihuahua who came out of a hoarding case with 23 dogs, bit my husband twice in month one and lived under the guest bed, to passing his canine good citizen test last saturday, the cooperative care work that ended sedated vet visits, the 340 dollars of calming products that did nothing, and why nobody takes small dog fear seriously

Bean is a now 6 year old male chihuahua, 8.1lb, pulled from a hoarding case where 23 dogs were living in a two bedroom house. we adopted him at 4 after he washed out of two other foster placements. writing this because two years ago i was reading posts like this one at 2am wondering if we had made a terrible mistake, and last saturday he passed his canine good citizen test, supervised separation and all, and i owe this community the writeup i needed back then.

month one was the low point. he lived under the guest bed and only came out at night when the house went quiet. he bit my husband twice, once when he reached under the bed to "help him out" (our fault, we knew nothing) and once during a harness attempt, both punctures, both from a dog we outweighed by a combined 340lb. he trembled at male voices, froze at the sound of keys, and would not eat if anyone was in the room. and heres the thing that still makes me angry, when we described all this to people, including one vet, the responses ranged from "chihuahuas are just like that" to laughing. if a german shepherd bit two people and hid from humans for a month, everyone involved would be saying behavior consult. an 8lb dog doing the exact same thing is apparently a personality quirk.

the money we wasted first. calming collar $28, replaced once, nothing. adaptil diffusers running in two rooms for four months, about $120 all in, nothing we could detect. calming treats and supplements, easily $90 across three brands, nothing. thundershirt $45, kept it, maybe mild help during storms, jury is out. and the one that scares me in hindsight, a board and train quote for $1,800 where the guy assured us he could "fix" him in three weeks, we toured the place, saw an e collar on a dog about Beans size, and left. so call it $340 of products plus almost a very expensive mistake. what actually worked cost less than the board and train. an initial consult with a fear free certified trainer, $180, then 10 private sessions at $75 over about eight months. treat and retreat, consent based handling, a chin rest behavior that became his way of saying yes im ready, my husband becoming the only food source in the house for two months, and a gabapentin protocol from our new fear free vet practice, $22 a bottle, that turned vet visits from full sedation events into something he walks into voluntarily. muzzle trained him too with a tiny custom muzzle, never needed it since, but its insurance and he thinks its a treat dispenser.

what i wish someone had told us at the start. trembling is not a breed trait, its a welfare problem wearing a cute costume. progress is not linear, we had a regression in month nine after a smoke alarm battery chirped all weekend that took six weeks to undo. and the goal was never a cuddly dog, it was a dog with agency. Bean chooses my lap maybe twice a week now, on his schedule, arriving on his own feet, and because its a choice it means more than any dog ive ever just picked up. the CGC evaluator, who was lovely, said she has passed hundreds of dogs and maybe five chihuahuas, not because they cant do it but because nobody bothers to train them. train your small dogs like theyre real dogs, because they are. happy to answer anything about the cooperative care side, thats the part that changed our daily life the most