Also Ben remember this could take weeks or months. When we worked with Shadow, our first Lab and a very severely abused dog we had to address a laundry list of fears.....fear of men, fear of wooden objects, fear of raised hands or voices...it just went on and on. She was so traumatized she was mute for months, then for years afterward would gag when she barked (we can only assume she was severely beaten for barking).

Because we didn't know any better back then we did baby Shadow too much at first. Eventually we did get the message that it wasn't helping her and put a stop to it. If she exhibited fear behaviour, we would just say "don't be silly Shad" and go about our business. This worked better than anything and over a long period of time Shad lost her fears. She did always cower if hands moved too fast or hide if voices were raised. We were never able to get her past that but then I can only shudder to think how badly she was treated prior to us adopting her.