Maya is so precious!!!
Yes I think the dog having respect for you as pack leader and it being fearful are somewhat connected, yet are two separate things.
Not only are we training the dog to become well adjusted, and confident, but I learned that us humans have to change our mentality in a way to accomodate our shy babies. Also even if I thought I was being a good pack leader, there was no way of knowing 100%, so continuing shy behavior really frustrated me and put myself esteem down, which was not helpful.
---This my personal story---
Our 7 months old cocker spaniel Royce was (and still is sometimes) a really really shy puppy. He was the only puppy to stay under the chairs at puppy social for 5 weeks!
He was constantly whimpering and whining at any new situations. I was afraid that I was exposing him to too much circus at such a young age, and yes I cooed him and coddled him.... :sad:
Although I've had many dogs, I've never had a shy puppy and I became worried that I might not do a good job, and even make things worse for life. So I enlisted help from professionals at our daycare center.
I left him at boarding school for 1 week at the hefty price of $420, while we went away for the holidays..
And he came back a completely different, much more confident well socialized puppy!! I honestly didn't expect him to change all that much, but what a difference. He now wants to go say hi to everyone & everdog!!
They called it the "dump the dog in the pool" effect, which as Ontariogreys mentions may not be a good method if you're just dumping your child into the middle of a deep pond....
However, I also remembered a little child dressed with those cute tubes that fit in their arms & scared of the water at the beginning. After being pulled into the kiddy pool several times, laughs and just jumps in on his own by the end of the day...
That's what happened to Royce. I feel (or would like to think
) that it was a somewhat separate issue from me being a good pack leader. Occasional obedience classes, obedience at home, and exposure to other dogs just wasn't enough for him to overcome this fear...
This in turn gave me more confidence to work with him, and take him to even more places.