Scared dog

I have recently (about a month ago) adopted my sweet Harley. Her owner (a male) went to college and couldn't keep her. She was a rescue as a puppy (found abandoned) and is 2 1/2 years old. I haven't taken her to the vet yet as she was well taken care of and up to date on her vaccines. I'm worried about how scared she is. She has bonded well with me however she is scared of everyone and everything else. She mostly stays on my bed all day and night. She will sit by me on the couch if nobody else is here. She let's my husband pet her some but seems frightened during the time he's loving on her. She will not come to her bowls to eat or drink unless I'm the only one in the house. At night after my husband goes to bed I will sit up with her to give her attention and let her eat and drink. She only goes outside for me. She's also very frightened of noise. The washing machine, dryer, heater and any other household noises. I thought it was just her getting use to a new environment but it's not getting any better. Some days she seems worse than others but she always seems to be on alert. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Hello.  There is a time in a dogs' life called the 'socialisation window,' during which time puppies are very accepting of new experiences and come to regard them as 'normal.'  Once this period has come to an end - which is not overnight, perhaps coinciding with the 12 week mark where they might naturally be supervised less by the parent - they may start to be more fearful of anything that they have encountered before.  So, in an ideal world a puppy will get used to meeting new sights and smells and people before they hit 12 weeks, even being carried into public places (their second vaccines may not be complete).  By the age of 2 and a half years, your dog is a full-blow adult and new things may be less easy for them to cope with.   I wonder if its possible that your youngster didn't get to meet lots of friendly new people or non-hostile loud noises during the socialisation window (might this have co-incided with lockdown, for example), or even came into contact with something very negative.  Therefore it is possible that they are not as well socialised as they could be.  Lots of love, care and very gentle, step by step introductions may be needed.   We would reccommend the involvement of a veterinary  behaviourist.  As anyone can call themselves a "behaviourist" - it is not a protected title.  As you can imagine, there are a lot of very convincing sounding non-evidence based theories about such things.  Therefore, it pays to be careful how you choose someone to help.

I have just been onto the 'blog' page of this website, where there is a search bar to look for articles.   I found that separately typing in 'behaviour' and 'socialisation' to that search, brought up a lot of articles all touching on this subject from differing angles.