I would personally not force any contact with her. If she is afraid of
you, then for her, your presence predicts the onset of fear or bad
feelings. What you want to do is change the association, so that your
presence predicts good things.

I think it would be useful for you to take over feeding and other care
routines -- that she enjoys. However, I would remain neutral and
essentially ignore her as you go about these things. Initiating a direct
interactions (like when you pet her in the presence of your mom and
stepdad) is probably too much for her to handle. Eventually, in your
"neutral but predicting good things" role you may find that she is more
at ease around you, and over time that she may even come to you. But
don't rush it.

I have a dog who is fearful of strangers. He is most comfortable with
people who completely ignore him, as if he is not there. I reward him
for approaching them and greeting them appropriately, and after a period
of time he may solicit attention and pats from them. But this is after a
whole lot of just desensitizing him to being around strangers -- to begin
with, I would do things like pass him a treat simply for walking by a
stranger on the sidewalk, even if he didn't even look at the person.
After some time, he started looking up at me for his treat every time we
encountered a new person, and that's when I knew the association was
starting to become positive for him.

The people Solo absolutely cannot handle are the ones who force
themselves on him -- the ones who must pet him, look him right in the
eye, talk to him immediately and try to rumple his ears, bending over him
with a big smile. At best he ducks away from these people, at worst he
lunges at them with all his teeth showing. It's just too much for him.
They don't allow him to formulate an opinion of them (safe vs.
dangerous), they just plunge right in. This forces him to default to
survival mode (fight/flight).

Solo used to be terrified of my brother, who is living at home with my
mother while he is going to law school. What got Solo over it was a
whole lot of just being in the same area, with my brother totally
ignoring him, first remaining still (sitting on the couch), then doing
things like walking into the kitchen and walking back, and so on. I
would reward Solo with a click and treat every time he approached my
brother, and also give a stream of treats every time my brother did
something new (like changing position on the couch or getting up to go
into the kitchen), so that activity on my brother's part became
non-threatening. After a while he thought my brother was fairly
well-associated with cool things, and began actively soliciting attention
from him. Now they cuddle together on the couch when I go home to visit.

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Melanie Lee Chang | Form ever follows function.
Departments of Anthropology and Biology |
University of Pennsylvania | -- Louis Sullivan
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