This week I adopted a new dog. I have been thinking about getting a companion for my dog for years. After consultation with my veterinarian, we decided it would be a good idea.
For years, I have had a “problem child”. He is a 7 year old chow husky mix. I was at the gym about 7 years ago, when a guy, we’ll call him Johnny Biceps asks me if I want a puppy… I knew his two dogs, one was a lovable chow, “Olivia” and the other was a rescue chow, “Bear”. Bear was pretty bad off, he wouldn’t allow anyone in his home besides Jonny Biceps and the family. This is a complete understatement, Bear would attack anyone in the yard. The UPS man used to leave packages at the end of the driveway and blow his horn… and they carry mace.
Me: “Are you friggin kidding? I want nothing to do with anything related to bear.
JB: “No, it was the neighbors dog.
Me: “OK, but I don’t want another dog.
I came home from the gym, and said to my girlfriend, “Olivia had puppies, want to go see them this weekend, not that I want one, but they are puppies…”
We went to see them one winter Saturday… We went down to the basement and saw them, 6 little fluff balls… how could you not fall in love with them? There was one that wouldn’t leave us alone (in retrospect, maybe not a good trait to choose a dog by). YES WE WANT HIM!!!
He wasn’t ready to go home, they have to be 8 weeks old to leave their mother… the weeks dragged… The weekend we were to pick him up was about the worst week of my life. I lost my best friend to an oxycontin o.d. well… I don’t know what it was, and I never asked… does it really matter? While I was cleaning out his apartment, my girlfriend brought the puppy home.
We had another dog, a 11 year old Belgian Sheppard, she took from under a trailer in Montana. When the boy would want to play with her, she would play a little then run to the basement for some piece and quiet.
The relationship eventually ended and she moved out, along with the Sheppard. I left for work in the normal way, threw his a couple of milkbones and headed out the door. I could never have been prepared for what I saw when I got home. The trim on the front door was gnawed through, the carpet in front of the door was torn up (3’X3’). He was terribly upset. He did about $1000 damage to the house that day, I wasn’t mad at him, I felt bad that he was that upset. I hugged him and apologized for hours to him.
This went on for a couple of days, while I was trying to figure out what to do. I called his puppy trainer and asked what to do… it was separation anxiety. I called my ex. She told me her dog hasn’t eaten in days. There was only one thing to do… get the dogs together. She would bring her dog over in the morning and leave her all day, then wait for me to come home from work and leave. This worked for a while, but our schedules didn’t work. Eventually it got to her taking both dogs with her during the week and I would get my boy on the weekends…. Does this sound like child custody yet?
She finally couldn’t handle two dogs in a New Hampshire winter and asked if I could take care of him during the week. We went back to she bringing her dog over during the day, since my house was between hers and her path to work. This lasted months it was probably about a year after we broke up and we were still doing this routine.
In the fall, she was laid off, when her business closed the local office. She moved back to Vermont. Before she moved I started dating another girl who was very suspicious of my ex coming and going from my house at will (well, it wasn’t at will, there was a schedule). I found a dog walker who would come during the day and break up his day and lessen the anxiety. In addition we went to dog training classes to build his self esteem, so he could manage a day without a companion.
My dog walker suggested I speak to my vet about his anxiety. We both went to the vet together, my vet prescribed valium. It worked for a couple of days, but he was taking 4 a day. We went back to the vet. She prescribed a medication that humans are prescribed for OCD, clomipramine. MAGIC!!!!
He instantly became a mature, confident dog. The downside, since he doesn’t have health insurance, was his medication costs me $2.20 / day. It’s been a year now (do the math – $2.20 / day – medication $18 / day for dog walker) when I the root cause of his actions was being lonely. There are other dog psychology theories that would suggest he hasn’t accepted his role of beta dog to me alpha dog. Alpha dogs are allowed to leave the pack from time to time, because they have important pack business, hunting, etc. Beta dogs know this and stay back. He is a pack dog, he is a husky they travel in packs, they hunt in packs. Because he was alpha for so many years, he just will not give it up.
This year at his physical, we went over all I have done with him and my vet finally agreed that another dog might just do the trick. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to use another dog as a fix if it was me that was causing the problems and another dog would be another problem.
Now I watch Cesar Milan religiously, in case you haven’t seen the dog whisperer and you are a dog owner you owe it to yourself to watch his show. What you will figure out from the show is, when people humanize animals is when they have problems with the animals… and loads of dog psychology.
I left my vets office and went straight to petfinder.com to find my boy a companion. I knew my boy gets along better with females than males and I know they can’t be larger than him. I found a Rottweiler rescue organization nearby and they had a couple of sweethearts. One of them, through a recessive gene made her smaller, (55lbs.) I filled out the application online and waited. The process is harder to get a Rottie than it is to get a handgun in New Hampshire. They required 2 references, the name of my veterinarian, they asked to see the deed to my house, my insurance policy and a home visit. We started the process. A week later we (the boy and I) went to meet a prospective new housemate. We introduced the dogs correctly, making one sit, while the other one sniffed, then made the other sit while the first sniffed. With normal calm submissive dogs, they will do this on their own. With my boys history, we had to force them to do it correctly.
I took the dogs together for a walk in the parking lot. The intent was to form a pack, walking together is what a pack does. They walked perfectly together. Dogs are always happiest walking together. My mother’s boyfriend has a Labrador retriever that the boy has issues with. Regardless of the issues, put leashes on them and take them for a walk, and they are buddies… it is a primal thing for dogs, I cannot say it enough.
Day 1
Her foster mother brought her over on Thursday morning at 8:00am. I took Thursday and Friday off to make sure they were ok together and to get to know her better. The two had met a week earlier in a parking lot in Nashua and now they were meeting again in the driveway. We fought the black flies for about 5 minutes and took the dogs inside to the screened in porch. They wrestled a little, a little growling and a couple of spats. They were trying to figure out their roles… alpha – beta. In my house, they are both beta, I am the alpha, but they can figure out which level they fall into. At one time, they each were up on their hind legs with their fronts on each others shoulders, they looked each other in the eyes then dropped and turned away… that was the moment! I looked at the foster mother and she said the same thing.
The foster mother went out to the car to get the girls medical records. The little girl panicked a little, I kept a steady supply of hotdogs into her to keep her mind off having her foster mom leave her for a couple of minutes. We went through the paper work. It was time for her to leave. What would Cesar do? Take the pack for a walk! I put leashes on everyone. She said goodbye to the little girl and left. I gave her a couple of minute head start and we went out the door for a walk.
The little girl was pulling me for a couple of hundred feet, she was probably smelling her momma’s van. A couple of quick jerks on her lead got her walking normal, head up, brain moving forward. We got a mile down the road, when we had a surprise; a bobcat crossed the road 200 feet in front of us! Neither of the dogs saw it, but I turned them around, because I didn’t want them to smell it. We walked a mile back home and sat on the porch and had water. It was now 10 am and the dogs had sorted out their hierarchy, formed a pack and were sleeping on the deck.
My ex was waiting for the phone call on when to come over to meet the girl. She has since left the job she moved to VT for and is back in New Hampshire. Her Sheppard had passed away almost 2 years ago and she has another dog, Lilly. Lilly and the boy have weekly play dates. So if there was another dog in the mix, we needed to know what would happen. So they came over about 1:00 and the dogs played all afternoon.
It was now time for dinner. The foster mother told me to feed her in her kennel, because she is food possessive. What she didn’t tell me was that she was possessive of other dogs food, not just hers. She scarfed her dinner, then went for the boys. I blocked her, but she became very aggressive. She practically went into a feeding frenzy. I felt bad and put her back in her kennel with some more food. She just wouldn’t stop eating, so I left her in her kennel to settle down while the boy finished his supper.
After dinner we went for a walk, we went a little early because 1) I was shot 2) I wanted to walk them both while it was still light out. We went to the boy’s favorite spot up the road, while he was 20 feet off the road doing circles, looking for the perfect spot… she just pooped on the side of the road, then peed right on top of it. I was relieved, she hadn’t gone all day, but I was almost knocked out, this was the worst smelling dog shit I had ever smelled.
Come bedtime, I told her it was bedtime and brought her over to her kennel, she walked right in and laid down, I closed the door and the boy and I went upstairs to bed, that was too easy.
Day 2
The coffee maker started at 4:45 like always, but there was no way I was getting out of bed. I fell back asleep and got up around 7:00. We went downstairs, put a leash on the kids and went for our morning walk. She dropped to a squat right in the driveway for her pee, the boy ran off a couple of feet from the driveway for #1 and #2. Geeze, I never even had to hit the easy button!
We came back to the house and had our coffee on the back porch. This was the first time the girl walked up to me sitting and put her big drewly face on my lap. Life was good, I am on my deck overlooking the mountains, drinking coffee and the dogs have done their business. Once again everything is too good… I am bored… I took two days off from work to break up dog fights that aren’t happening.
I got a txt from my ex asking if I was up for another play date for the kids, of course… they came over in about ½ hour later. Lilly was happy to see the boy and girl, so happy she peed right there on the floor. We were out on the deck, so it didn’t really matter, a paper towel fixes all. The three dogs played for a while, then I noticed the girl was pacing, like she was looking for something. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but I saw the signs… then without more warning, she put out the biggest stinkiest pile of poop.
Day 3
Saturday I had to leave the house. It had been two days. I headed to Home Depot to buy materials to build a fence for the kids. I had them out on cables, which is good for one dog, but when you add a second you get knots and quickly. I walked down to the backyard and scoped out the spot. I figured 25’ X 25’ would be a decent size for the two of them to frolic. Originally I thought of having it go up to the back door, but that would require making a tunnel out to area. I figured since they would have to be supervised in the pen anyhow, I could walk them out to it.
When I came home, the boy met me at the door, instead of his usual wound up self, he approached the door with an air of “oh, it’s you… “ Holy shit!!!! The new girl worked!!! He was completely fine with me being out of the house. And her… I had to wake her because she was sleeping when I walked up to her kennel.
Day 4
I thought it would be a good idea for my dog walker to meet the little girl before she came to take them out. Her and he husband came over, they waited on the front deck waiting for us to come out. She was very suspicious of them… Within a few minutes she had explored them and thought they were ok. We walked down into the yard to survey the next fenced in area for the dogs and decided I could make it a little bigger (25’X50’). I handed her the leash to see if the girl would freak… she didn’t.
They were about to leave when the husband said “Hey, why don’t you put the leash on her… “ good thing he did. The girl would not have it. Hum… what would Cesar do? Leash = good, food = good… I got a couple of milkbones, handed them to her, she gave the girl milkbones while hooking up the leash… worked like a charm.
Day 6
She has gotten into a routine and so have we. She waits in the morning for me to have coffee and a shower before coming out of her kennel. The three of us go for a walk in the morning, she does her stuff. We come home have a little playtime and I leave for work. When I come home, she is happy to see me and we go for another walk.
Dinner time is still a little crazy, she snapped at the boy because I had a bowl of food with me, when bringing him inside to eat. I corrected her and fed him first. Hopefully she will associate being bad with eating last.
Time to go for our nightly walk
Posted by busterthedawg 
Posted by busterthedawg 
Posted by busterthedawg 