First of all I appreciated all the advice everyone posted.

After giving it a lot of thought we decided to adopt the dog. His name
is now, officially, Bear. Nobody knows what his original name was.

We have a little more information that I got from the person at the
animal shelter that the police brought him to. He was taken away from
his owner after a neighbor called. The owner was developmentally
challenged and apparently a social worker thought it was a good idea
to give him a pet " to learn to love". Unfortunately the owner had no
idea of how to deal with a dog and the social worker never checked up
on it.

Bear was kept in a an apartment his whole life. The last two years or
so he was in one room. When the shelter got him he didn't know what
grass was. His pads were in such bad shape from standing in urine and
feces that he was walking on his wrists. He was covered in fleas and
had severe ear infections. When the foster brought him to the vet he
had 16 teeth extracted. The owner would hit him with a cane when he
didn't like what Bear was doing, which sounds like most of the time.
He also would put him in a hot shower when he was angry with Bear.

When the foster got him he was simply staring off into space and
wouldn't react to anything, pretty much checked out mentally. After
three months in foster he came back amazingly well considering where
he started. He still has a long way to go though.

Currently we have had him for little over three weeks. He is not a
very social dog, for obvious reasons and spends a lot of his time
frightened when people are around. When you pet him or give him treats
he is extremely tentative and always watches for something to hit him.
If I had to guess based on his actions he is used to being given a
treat and then hit or grabbed for punishment. He also won't eat or
drink if anyone is in the same room. He grabs mouthfuls of food or
water and then runs. Any noise while he is at it and he bolts. My
guess is that he was hit frequently while eating or drinking "you've
had enough" whack.

His two biggest problems are doors and leashes. The leash problem is
simple, if you put the leash on and let him drag it around he's fine
but if you pick up the end he flattens out and literally digs his
claws into the ground. I've never seen anything like it. Again my
guess is that he was dragged by the owner in order to get him close
enough to punish. Apparently it was used while he was in the
apartment.

The door problem is simple too. He won't go through one. We have steps
leading up to the door of our house. He will come up the steps if the
door is closed but if he hears any noises or the door moves at all he
runs. If the door is open he won't come up the steps for anything,
including raw meat.The odd thing is that he stands at the bottom of
the steps watching the door and obviously wanting to come inside. I've
tried leaving the door open for extended periods but he won't do it.
After a while he gets more agitated and turns circles, but still won't
come in. I have no idea of what happened other than he may have been
slammed with a door a lot.

Obviously this presents problems for house breaking. Actually he's
very good about using a puppy pad inside. When the foster got him he
would simply eliminate in his bed and lie in it. She got the puppy
pads and he would eliminate on the pads then lie on the pads. She got
him to use the pads and then not lie on them, which was a definite
plus. He turns in small circles when he gets ready to go so we can
pick him up and put him outside if we notice in time. If we do that he
will eliminate outside with no problem. We have a fenced in yard and
he loves it out there.

He doesn't come when called, which doesn't surprise me. If I go out
and sit down on the steps he will run towards me across the yard but
when he gets within about 4 feet or so he pulls a u-turn and goes
back. He's obviously feeling conflicting impulses.

He runs initially but will eventually wait to picked up and brought
back in. When he's picked up he freezes and goes rigid. If I hold him
and pet him for a while he relaxes some but stiffens up again if he
hears loud noises or gets startled.

Luckily there have been no signs of aggression, if anything the exact
opposite. The strange thing is that he doesn't bark at all but
sometimes when he's asleep he will bark a couple of times or snarl
very loudly. When that happens he wakes himself up and looks alarmed.

He's actually made improvements in the last three weeks. He is making
more eye contact and not cringing quite as much. We are working with
him and we have contacted a vet that specializes in behavioral issues
and scheduled an at home consultation. Hopefully that will give us
some definite methods to deal with his anxiety issues. Given all of
the unknowns as to what he experienced it's tough to tell what will
help and what may make things worse.

Anyway, long post but I thought I would let people know what happened.

Thanks,

-Jim