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Quorra

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My friend's wife got a king kong dong dildo as a gag for her bachelorette party and gave it to her dogs as a toy. Seeing a mastiff and spaniel playing tug-o-war with it is both hilarious and disturbing at the same time.

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Ok, so it's been a week since we took a dog (a bitch, to be exact) from a dog shelter. She's 2-4 years old (no one can say for sure), and the whole family absolutely love her, despite the lack of behaviour (she spent almost a year in a shelter).

Here's some pictures: http://zapodaj.net/6173f0ed3dc24.jpg.html, http://zapodaj.net/1fff2f373c22f.jpg.html, http://zapodaj.net/c4df5adc22373.jpg.html, http://zapodaj.net/809131466b7e9.jpg.html.

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  • 1 month later...

The issue of maybe needing to rehome my dog has come up.  I can barely even consider it or think about it because my dog is my baby.  It makes me feel sick when someone talks about it and then I start crying and continue to ignore the issue because it sucks.

Long story short, there have been a lot of changes in my life and these changes have been problematic with my pup.  I'm a foster parent so there are children, typically traumatized, entering my home.

I have failed at training my dog to behave in a moderately calm way when people enter the home. Despite so many hours and months of training and spending a small fortune on a well reviewed in home dog trainer, he still jumps and barks and pees and pukes generally goes crazy every time someone enters the home.  Whatever slight improvement there had been with the professional trainer disappeared when I recently moved.  

My dog is super smart, can learn a new complicated trick in one sitting.  He's a wonderful dog, he's so sweet and outside the home he's so perfectly amazing and has even successfully completed therapy dog course.  It's just at home when people come over that he becomes this stressful yapping, spinning, jumping, puking, peeing and incredibly needy beast. I know this problem is my own fault, either because of poor training or not having socialized him well enough in his first year, or a combination of both.  I had kids in the house for a short period recently and Dog had to go stay with a friend because it just wasn't working.  The issue of possibly having to rehome my pup had come up several times during the interview process and I agreed that I would of course choose kids over the dog.  It seemed like a no brainer at the time when it was still a hypothetical and when I knew I had time to do more training.  Now it feels like one of the most upsetting things I could think about.  I haven't yet been forced to make a decision because my foster kid placements have so far only been very short term making it easy to send him to a friends for a weekend (which stresses him out, btw).  

I just don't know what to do. I have just enough extra money in my budget this month to hire another trainer for a few in home sessions and I am totally willing to go for broke with that and hope it works this time (and also hope that my first long term foster child isn't so terrified of dogs that the only choice is to rehome).  Or I can make the decision now to find my dog a new adoptive home.  

I honestly don't even know how to rehome a dog.  The local breed rescue groups aren't accepting any new animals right now, and have a long wait list besides, so that's not even an option.  I will not send him to a shelter.  I don't know where to look to find the best home for him.  I'm super afraid that if I do find a family, they will seem wonderful only to turn out as horrid as me and eventually give him away again because they can't deal with the same issues I've failed at dealing with.  

Any advice?  Something I haven't thought of?  General sympathy?  I never realized I could feel this sad and upset about a dog but it really does feel like I'm making a decision about a family member.  

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General sympathy you can certainly have - in spades.

As for specific advice, I'm afraid I'd be utterly useless; you've already tried everything I could think of. Beyond that, I can only think of maybe one of the celebrity dog trainers taking your case on Pro Bono; though I'm far from convinced the various dog whisperers are any better than Joe Bloggs the local (well reviewed) dog trainer.

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On 1/23/2016 at 1:15 PM, Dr. Pepper said:

Any advice?  Something I haven't thought of?  General sympathy?  I never realized I could feel this sad and upset about a dog but it really does feel like I'm making a decision about a family member.  

Your goal of offering a calm stable environment for the foster kids is not compatible with the needs of this dog.  It sucks but no choice from here is going to be easy.

If you want to try something, your money is best spent on a veterinary behavior specialist.  Your best chance of success is a combination of behavior modifying drugs with advanced behavior modification.  To try to change such an extreme condition takes much time, much dedication, and much diligence.  A veterinary behavioral specialist is the best person to give you both.  This website will give you some information if there are options in your area.

As to finding a new home, this is going to be tough.  You're going to probably go through friends and friends of friends to find the right home.  Some rescue groups may be able to help but you'll need to be creative and patient. 

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Dr. Pepper, you've got my sympathy. We only have our Freya for five weeks and she jumps, and barks and licks everyone on the face when we return home (no peeing or puking though, I admit) and generally shows she's the happiest dog alive. We all think it's kinda sweet actually, but of course I can understand symptoms you described might be unsettling or even alarming. Nevertheless - have you considered trying to check out how your foster kid respond to such dog's behaviour before doing anything unreversible? Perhaps they can just get along after few weeks or so? From what I understand you and the rest of your family are not bothered too much by that, maybe your foster kid would get used to it as well quicker than you think? Sorry if it's too obvious an advise and you've already dissmised that. Hope you can make it without having to make hard choices.

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On ‎1‎/‎23‎/‎2016 at 2:15 PM, Dr. Pepper said:

/snip

Have you tried putting your doggy in the yard or elsewhere, maybe a closed-off room, when someone new comes in, then introduce him to them outside on neutral ground, THEN bring them both into the house?

Honestly, I think I'd resort to some sort of calming drugs for a while to break the habit of going berserk upon entry of someone new.  He wouldn't have to stay on them forever - he could be taken off of them once he's out of this habit. 

Maybe a combination of the two ideas would work.  

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3 minutes ago, Tears of Lys said:

Have you tried putting your doggy in the yard or elsewhere, maybe a closed-off room, when someone new comes in, then introduce him to them outside on neutral ground, THEN bring them both into the house?

Honestly, I think I'd resort to some sort of calming drugs for a while to break the habit of going berserk upon entry of someone new.  He wouldn't have to stay on them forever - he could be taken off of them once he's out of this habit. 

Maybe a combination of the two ideas would work.  

That sounds like good advice to me.

Also, there is a non-pharmaceutical option for calming a dog. It's called a Thundershirt, and it's absolutely awesome. It really does work.

 

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Dr Pepper, I've just read your post again, and I really think the Thundershirt might work for you. 

Just under a year ago, my sister had her first child. My seven-year-old Border Terrier found the whole thing very, very exciting. Whenever the baby came to visit, Kolo would go mental. Jumping up, crying, running around in circles. Whenever the baby was handed to someone else, Kolo would jump up and try to grab my niece's feet. One day she even tried to have a little nip.

The whole thing was hugely distressing. Kolo is a lovely, gentle, sweet little dog. But whenever the baby was around she became a deranged, over-excited beast.

Until we got her a Thundershirt. For about two months, whenever she was going to see the baby, we trussed her up in the Thundershirt. It works on the same principle as compression wear for autistic kids, and the difference was immediate and remarkable.

Now, I can sit on the floor, playing with my niece, while Kolo just mills about in a calm and submissive state. And the only time she needs her Thundershirt is when there's an actual thunderstorm outside.

 

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4 minutes ago, Tears of Lys said:

That looks wonderful, Spockydog!  I never knew it existed.  I'd certainly try that first before resorting to drugs.

Yeah, it was an absolute godsend. It was getting to the stage where we just couldn't have Kolo and the baby in the same room, but the TS immediately solved all our problems.

And as far as Kolo's concerned, £30 is a small price to pay for not being absolutely freakin' terrified on Guy Fawkes Night, Diwali and New Year's Eve.

 

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I can speak very highly of the thundershirt. My one dog is a rescue, former bait dog, and gets crazy when anyone outside of my immediate family walks through the door. She would jump at people, nip at then, bark like crazy, pee on the floor... We used to have to put her in our basement when guests were over.

We started using the thundershirt after our vet used one at his office to keep her calm during an examination. She still gets visibly anxious when new people come over, but she is very calm about it when she has the shirt on... no jumping, no peeing, no nipping. Now we hear little soft moaning when people come in, but that's it.

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Thanks for all of the advice, everyone. It's helped me develop a much better plan.  I've gone through my vet to help find someone to help and they've come out for a consult and there's a new treatment and aggressive training plan in place.  I asked about the thundershirt and though she said I shouldn't need it, she didn't have anything negative to say about it so that's definitely ended up in my amazon shopping cart as the reviews are too good to pass it up.  In the meantime, it will give me a chance to look for potential homes for my pup just in case (and I've been told by my vet and several others that my standards for another home are ridiculous, lol, apparently I'm that type of dog owner). 

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  • 1 month later...

Just an update and then a question.

Extra dog training has gone ok, I guess.  there's been no real chance to test it with certain age groups, but we'll see.  I guess the one good thing I got out of it was the the trainer has several families who would love to adopt my dog if that becomes necessary.  

The trainer offered an extra free session, which was really sweet, though I only accepted because I felt put on the spot a bit (she turned out to be barely a C grade trainer).  I'm not really sure of the etiquette here.  Am I expected to offer something even though it's free?  Should I have offered some sort of tip anyway, even if there wasn't an extra free session? 

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I've got two black labradors which I adore. My youngest lab is 3 and when she's excited her ears flop all around the place and she waddles around (not because she's fat!). In the future I would like a different dog breed - not that I don't love labradors - just to experience something different.

I'd probably buy as many dogs as humanly possible whilst still helping them have an enjoyable life (if that was financially possible for a average-above average pay wage.)

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