Carmella was an angelic dog--house trained, polite, obedient--but she did not like my other big dogs. She was soooo excited to have people who loved her and took good care of her that all she wanted to do was bask in our attention and be loved...and not share that love with anyone else. She had passed all of her temperament tests with flying colors...but she was really territorial over the space around the people who took care of her when it came to other giant dogs.
I can imagine a lot of reasons why this might have happened. She had been bred nearly to death--the vet who spayed her said her uterus was horribly scarred from so many puppies. It's possible that she had been beaten up by other Danes during mating, and that she'd had bad experiences with them. She was also recovering from surgery, and often when dogs are hurting they get edgy about other dogs being near them.
For whatever reason, she wasn't tolerating the resident dogs at our house. While that's something we've worked on with other dogs in the past, since our dogs are old and Carmella was also old and post-surgery, we thought it safest to move her somewhere else. We will train dogs through a lot, but not if it endangers their health or our pets'.
Thankfully the rescue responsible for her acted quickly and found her a place to stay that was not only safe, but pretty darn nice. Pampered Pets in Hoover is currently taking care of her while Peace Love and Dog Paws evaluates potential homes. Last I heard, they had a very good-sounding potential adopter without other pets.
I really wish I'd gotten to see that poor, sweet old girl all the way through to her new home. In the end, I didn't do nearly what I wanted to, but I'm relieved that she'll be ok.
Fingers crossed that things will work great next time, or that if they go wrong, it will be the kind of thing that I am equipped to fix.
No comments:
Post a Comment