Well we found a dog, not long after my first post and commenced the two week trial that all shelters have. Margie was her name and she looked a lot like a Dandy Dinmont Terrier, without the top knot. A very rare breed, so I'm sure it was just luck she actually looked dandy.
Margie was on anti anxiety medication when we took her for trial. After taking her medication each morning, she became withdrawn and wouldn't come near us. As the medication wore off during the day, she became a normal happy dog. She greeted us enthusiastically every morning at 7:00am, very happy we were still there in her life.
Anxiety is not something, I believe, that should be treated with medication, the reason for the anxiety should be treated, medication just masks the symptoms.
Not happy, I contacted the shelter and asked if I could take Margie to the vet for a withdrawal plan, the shelter refused, so, I made a terrible mistake, I became angry, saying I could not be party to such cruelty and surrendered Margie back to them. Sometimes we just do silly things, not thinking of the consequences! So we lost Margie, but I believe she has since found a good home.
Not long after we found another dog, Lotto. As it happened Lotto also looked like a Dandy Dinmont, what are the chances?
Unfortunately, the shelter weren't very truthful with us, Lotto came with a lot of baggage: He was also, on anti anxiety medication, but I think that was just to quell his aggressive tendencies, so they could sell him. Fortunately, I have a lot, and I mean a lot, of experience with difficult dogs, compliments of studying dog behaviour training dogs for the RAAF over a 25 year career.
Lotto was a character, so, I set to work. Lotto was extremely food aggressive, foot aggressive and sometimes just a grump. In the two weeks we had him, I managed to cure him of both food and foot aggression and his grumpy side seemed to be waning.
Unfortunately, my wife having been bitten twice by dogs was scared of him, so we decided to return him. I told the shelter I'd look after him and work on his aggression until they found him another home. Two weeks later he was gone to a nice lady in Port Lincoln.
I wrote a three page brief on Lotto for her, outlining how to train and cure him of his behavioural problems. He hasn't turned back on the shelters available dog's list, so happily Lotto appears to have found a new mum (mom).
Lotto had a lot of problems, whilst the wife was scared of him, he was fine with me: I could hold his feet, put my hand in his feed bowl, hand feed him and so on. No doubt, because I was the one involved with his behavioural modification training.
One morning he threw up on the bed. As you are probably aware, dogs are regurgitators, occasionally they will regurgitate their dinner and then settle down to a nice hot meal. The wife went to clean up the chuck, but Lotto became extremely aggressive, growling and guarding his chuck, as he would his food.
Lotto was fine with me, but I couldn't take the chance of him biting my wife so he was returned.
We've decided to hold off getting a dog for a while as we've decided to do a bit of travelling: NZ in December, around Australia cruise mid 2024 and then possibly a European river cruise later in the year. That would be unfair on a dog being stuck in kennels all that time, so, we've decided to hang off adopting a dog for now.
Very difficult for me: In 72 years I've never been without a dog, dogs were my life from 75 -2000 when I served as a RAAF dog handler. Already, I am missing having a dog, it just doesn't seem right, not having a dog around to talk to.
