by C. Devlin » Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:31 pm
I'm with you, John. The way people just throw dogs away is so heart breaking and mind boggling. I've had a number of problem animals in my life, but I've worked hard to turn them into not-problem animals instead of just throwing them away with the hope somebody else will take care of the problem for me. My first dog in Chicago (my first dog as an adult -- grew up with dogs all my life) was a fear biter, and I took her through two obedience classes to figure out how to handle her. At the end of the second full course, the trainer used us at graduation to illustrate how you could turn a problem dog into a success story. No question it was difficult, and I for sure didn't know how it would turn out. But what most people don't know is that most problems CAN be solved. But then too many people seem to think dogs will educate themselves or grow out of problem behavior. We currently live in a divided house, and have for, what, roughly 12 years (I can't believe it's been that long). Our two female dogs decided one day, after a year of living reasonably peacefully together, that it was their goal in life to kill each other. After going to one resource and trainer after another and working with them ourselves, we realized these dogs would never get along, period. Our yard is divided. Our house is divided with gates. Where one dog goes, the other can't. People are amazed to see it in action, and also to see that it actually works pretty easily and seamlessly now. I agonized in the beginning whether to give one or the other up, and then realized I'd be giving the problem away. So we decided to keep them both. Their lives are short, relative to ours. The inconvenience seemed a small price as opposed to having to wonder for the rest of my life whether someone else might have given up and done something unthinkable.
