Last Ditch Try at Finding Helpful suggestions
I will try to keep it short but...it is going to be a long read, sorry. I really need some new creative ideas.
First let me say I have trained and worked with animals including dogs, my entire 75 years of live. I am not a professional trainer but I know what I am doing. I have spoken with local trainers and behaviorists and just get affirmation that I am doing everything they would be doing in this situation.
Just before Christmas 2025 I had a female foster dog staying with me, She had not yet been sterilized because of health issues that needed to be resolved before surgery. I live in a city of around 30K people. The little foster dog went into heat just before she was to go back to kennel for her surgery. Almost immediately the make dogs from nearby neighborhoods showed up outside my gate. Among them a small black smooth coat podengo mix male (the dog in the Odyssey movie is a podengo for reference). He took up residence in the green in front of my house, sleeping in the bushes. He discouraged the other dogs until he was the only suitor left. My house has a balcony and a walled terrace with a large gate. The little female dog and I would go out for a walk and he would follow at a respectful and safe distance. She went in for her surgery, he stayed outside my gate. She returned and he still followed us when I took her out for a walk. Then he started following me even when she wasn't with me.
I tried feeding him and made sure he had a water source.
One day, just before Christmas, I had my hands full and the female on a leash. We got home and I opened the gate. I left it open with the plan to go upstairs to my living area with the female dog and the packages, then return and close the gate. At the top of the outside stairs I turned to go into my house and saw that the black male had followed us through the gate and was halfway up the stairs. He followed me into the house! I put everything down, unleashed the female who went over to say hello and I went downstairs and shut my gate.
He has not left.
The female got adopted on new years day. since then I have had three extreme case foster dogs. Each has been healed, given confidence, trained in maners, and adopted into perfect forever homes.
I have a cat.
I named the black dog, Shadow.
I have a three story home with the living area on the middle floor. Shadow has never once gone up or down the indoor stairs. I leave the door open and he goes out on the balcony, and down to the walled patio. He sits at a window in garden wall and watches the world go by. He has established rules which he has then quickly taught each foster dog. I am superfluous at a certain level. He never has accidents indoors. He designates for the other dogs where they can do their business. He shows them that they are not to be on the furniture. His disapproval is silent but very clear. He does not eat food until he has it named as his and been given permission and he teaches the fosters to do the same. He is protective of the house, but as soon as I acknowledge a visitor he goes back to whatever he was doing and relaxes. he teaches the fosters how to behave with the cat.
He knows his name. He keeps his eyes on me at all times when I am in the living area. He sleeps in and shares dog beds scattered around the space, but decide that a mat near the kitchen sink is his "place" He knows when I tell him I am going out, following me halfway down the stairs. and always greets me with an acknowledging stare from the top of steps when I return.
The kennel came to the house and shot him with a dart in my living room. The took him in and gave him a medical check and sterilized him, vaccinated him, checked his teeth, chipped him and put a red collar on him, etc. while he was unconscious and then returned him to me before he woke up. That was in January.
He is perfectly healthy and was three years old when he walked through my gate.
I have learned that the municipal animal control people, the sheriffs' department, and four separate vet clinics in four different neighborhoods have been trying to catch him for 2 1/2 years. No one ever came close to succeeding. For just under three years he followed wherever the hormones of a female in heat took him. I also discovered multiple families in different neighborhoods that have tried to befriend him and failed. I did not know it, but he is a literal legend in this city.
As far as we know, he has never once been touched by human hands except while he was unconscious in January.
His primary motivation is risk aversion. He will go weeks without eating rather than risk capture. He has no desire to be touched in any way. He is not reactive. He is super smart, and a clear communicator. I talk to him as much as I can. I swear he understands a lot of what I say. He has every enrichment dog toy and I do brain teasers using towels with him.
He does not like other people, but tolerates them once I invite them into the house and regular visitors are given stern warnings, and then ignored as long as they don't try to approach him or speak to him.
I can have the garden gate open and he does not try to leave.
He does like sardines. I will sit and toss him bits of sardine while I remain still and calm. I try to get him close to me and sometimes he gets very close. Recently, he actually came up and placed his nose on the back of my hand while I was fussing with the latest foster after a walk. This has happened twice now.
My goal is to get a leash on him. I want to be able to get him to a vet in case of emergency. I would love to be able to walk him outside. First, I need to be able to touch him.
I am just hoping someone while have some magic thing I can do that will get him to trust me and allow touch. Help!
