DOGS

tabes thats rough i hope it turns around for ye

thanks yall. we are just discussing it at the moment— like all aggressive dogs he has good days and bad days. he wants to be good but the animal fear/stimulation feedbacks he gets into are intense and hard to deal with.

but for example, this morning we had a lovely walk.

It's tough, for sure. I have a friend who works in a dog rescue, and the last two dogs she had were long-termers from that rescue. She gets up at 5am to walk her dogs every day when there's nobody around, then spends her free time thinking up enrichment games and toys for them so they can have at least some happy life. She and her partner never go away together.

The only fortunate thing is that there's been a bit of a mini-boom in privately owned dog parks here, where you can pay an hourly fee to run your dogs in a couple of acres with no other dogs around. They're expensive, and only accessible by car, and the rules around them are really strict, but they seem to be constantly booked up.

Yesterday Widget had a blast with my friend C’s tripaw Staffie girl who was happy to chase him across Hampstead Heath. She is really fit despite the lost leg and I’m so glad he’s found a dog of that breed that he likes.

Widget’s faves are anything shaped like a Pointer (Dalmatian/Vizsla/Weimeraner), other sighthounds, lurchers, Dachshunds, Jack Russells, Poodles, Border collies and Bernese mountain dogs. He is variable on spaniels (Tracer Hand’s Springer good, neighbour’s wayward cocker bad), cockapoos, Schnauzers, and Chihuahuas. He loathes bull/mastiff breeds, most Shepherds, retrievers on lead, and EBTs.

Nora has a new game. "I'm going to grab the other dog's toy and play keep away. For an hour." Like, she won't drop it, won't respond to commands, and the other dog just gets more and more agitated and heartbroken at her ruthless toynapping. If the other dog starts to lose interest, or feign interest, Nora gets this smug look on her face and starts squeaking the toy in her jaws. What a mean girl!

Ha, Teddy does that to Howie’s toys too… “that’s mine now, gonna play with it and make you sad!”

Widget showed me a new talent yesterday: he runs off with a small stuffed French bulldog toy in his mouth, and will play keepy-uppy with it, tossing it in the air and catching it over and over while going off at top whippet speed. If he does it next time, I’m filming it.

That sucks, table. I know there are some sites & apps for pet sitters and house sitters that will come to your dog while you're away, unless you don't trust them to keep your dog away from other dogs.

I also have an extremely problematic rescue dog, he's a little psychopath and has been one for the last 8 years. Has issues with other dogs, sure, whatever, although he's been able to make friends with small dogs with repeated exposure. The real issue is he's violent with people, especially us. Triggers include moving the wrong away, letting him sit on your lap, asking him to kennel up at the end of the night, doing any number of activities that may lead to other activities that signal the end of the night, and of course any sort of grooming. He's burned through every groomer in town and last week once again only got half-groomed, even loaded full of drugs (the resultant haircut is admittedly hilarious though).

We've tried behaviorists and lots of training approaches, but he'll always be crazy. Of course he's incredibly sweet when he's not being murderous (and two seconds after he's done biting he acts like nothing happened), but it feels like being in an abusive relationship.

Luckily he's only 11 lbs, if he was a large dog he surely would have been euthanized by now.

One of our dogs is a long-haired Patterdale terrier. The kind of dog that's more a type than a real breed. In Ireland at least, you still mostly find them killing rats on farms or going out hunting rabbits and whatnot. You can tell they're a serious kind of dog, because auld lads are always looking at Bittser admiringly and telling me what a grand little dog he is. "I bet he's a great ratter," they'll say. Or, "I bet he keeps you on your toes." He does not. He has his run around off the lead for about an hour in the morning, and sometimes he'll chase pigeons in the garden for a while in the afternoon, but otherwise he snoozes all day in our ancient cat's bed, and then cries at me if I don't put a blanket over him in the evening. I was saying this to a woman today and she said, "You obviously have the other kind of Patterdale. Probably why he was dumped." Her sister had a Patterdale for a while and had to give it away because it attacked her red setter and almost killed it.