An ode to our difficult ones

Our Rottweiler is never allowed off lead except in a secure area, because her recall is not reliable enough. And if a Rottweiler is on the loose, you can guarantee someone will blame it for something. Recall is great in a secure area, no matter what is at the other side of the fence but if she sees something that she can chase, you can't be sure that she won't close her ears and be off. Her sister was worse. We had no older dogs when they were pups. The previous Rott had brilliant recall but she had other dogs to teach her.
 
@Karran he took offence to an Aussie in the other lane during a run back and went for the poor dog. To his credit, when he's running he goes up and back but every single run, the second he was through the gate he was with the other team trying to bully someone into playing chase with him. He's never been interested in the other team before so to go for a dog rattled me massively so we're back to the drawing board.
 
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CorvusCorax said:
'My dog does this naturally/without being trained to, so you should have no problem' is A) crap advice and B) probably wishful thinking.
A lot of people say how great their dog is off lead when in reality they have no idea where it is or what it's doing.
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“My dog is great off the lead” often translates as “my dog goes off the lead and is actually a prat and a pain to those it encounters”
 
I bought a one year old Saluki, long term Lurcher owner so thought i knew the breed. Probably under socialised and never lived in a house.

Day 1- bought him home, he slipped harness and lead getting out of the car. Spent the next 3 hours trying to catch him. Finally managed to herd him into the garden and block of exits with car, lorry, wheelie bins. Went to bed expecting never to see him again.
Day 2 - took an hour to lure him into the kitchen, got him through the back door, ran out the front door and closed the back door (5 attempts). From day 2 has slept on my bed.
Day 2 he falls under spell of girl lurcher.
First 6 months had to chase him round the kitchen table to get a lead on him.
Month 2 - I reckon his recall is good enough to go off lead. Gets into field of sheep, takes me 45 minutes to catch him. No more off lead walks.
Month 3 - Lurcher absconds from garden with Saluki boyfriend in tow. She returns home, he does not. Got into field of sheep and killed one. when I found him he was terrified and came straight home. Serious grovelling to next door farmer, our 20+ years of being good neighbours just about survived.
From then one has never been left off lead except in secure field where he can run. and immediately outside house he can go round garden and yard.
Occassionally (3 times in a year) he will go feral, something switches in his brain, and I can’t get him to come back in the house. Once to the amusement and bewilderment of a van load of builders who were instructed to stand either side of the front door (hidden) then jump out and close the front door when I got him in.
Despite all this I love him, he has gone from being very anxious and nervy to playful - the only one of my dogs who will play with a toy and will run for ages when he has a toy. Taking him out in public means being frequently stopped so people can admire him (and sometimes tell me I don’t feed him enough as he is too thin).
I love him but would never have another one.
 
I remember the bewilderment and frustration and the feeling that banging your head against a brick wall would be more productive when trying (and failing miserably) to train a dog. Seeing everyone else doing all the fun things with theirs with no apparent effort.
Karron, I so felt what you said about the dread of taking the dog out, the stress of what would go wrong today...

I have been very lucky with the help and support I've had from others - friends, trainers, dog club, most of whom really helped to put all the disasters into proportion - there was the odd one who take apparent pleasure in telling me I obviously couldn't cope but as I'm a stubborn awkward cow, that spurred me into carrying on - but there's no denying that it was and is still on occasion difficult. I've also lowered my expectations quite a lot and learnt to celebrate the little wins!

Reggie has been great at training for couple of weeks, doing everything that's asked, asking nicely for treats from selected people, not peeing on other dogs (really, that's huge :)) as long as he has his assistance dog present. Considering that a year ago, he had to be carried out of training screaming and thrashing by 3 people after 10 minutes that's great. However, being good and paying attention for an hour seems to mean that when we get home, there is a solid hour of him literally bouncing off walls, windows, Woody, me, trying to rag the furniture, jumping on worksurfaces - well you get the picture. he then flakes out and is still tired the next morning. He's going to have to go back to 20 minutes of the puppy class, isn't he...
 
cbmcts said:
I have been very lucky with the help and support I've had from others - friends, trainers, dog club, most of whom really helped to put all the disasters into proportion
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You've reminded me that I think it's worth celebrating that without having an arsehole dog I wouldn't have met a fraction of the people I now have as very good friends, as well as trainers and the wider dog club(s) circle. I might have had an easier life with a 'normal' dog but I would have missed out on knowing some awesome people.
 
blackcob said:
You've reminded me that I think it's worth celebrating that without having an arsehole dog I wouldn't have met a fraction of the people I now have as very good friends, as well as trainers and the wider dog club(s) circle. I might have had an easier life with a 'normal' dog but I would have missed out on knowing some awesome people.
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Ditto. When I say my dog has changed my life, I really mean that, it's like having a second family, I have pals in Australia and South Africa because of him, and we couldn't have done anything at all without a good team around us.
 
I was going to write something about Eira Westie-knickers and then saw CC's beautifully composed ode and decided the thread had peaked ?.

But in the interests of sharing, Eira was a young re-home off Preloved. She came from a family who were feeding her mainly on shreddies and warm milk, so her skin was horrendous. She was also very angry and very destructive. She had dug up their garden (I've never seen a lawn so comprehensively destroyed), escaped a couple of times a week, and growled and snapped at pretty much everything and everyone (both children had been bitten). I thought that with a decent diet and a bit of training she would be fine. I guess that was true, but it did take about 4 years and really quite a lot of training.

And there are still many imperfections...she still grumbles a lot, but it is more a conversational noise than a growl with any kind of intent, like when a human mutters under their breath. Her short range recall is pretty much perfect, but once she is more than about 70m away it is largely dependent on whether there is something more interesting than stupid idiot human. And she is still phenomenally bossy and attempts to order around everyone and everything - us, dogs, cats, horses, squirrels, ......using a whole variety of noises. And she is still a filth-monger who takes great delight in wallowing in every muddy ditch she comes across

Eira we love you X
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Joe isn't really difficult behaviourally (aside from being a bit of a diva at times), just in the natural manner of his breed (greyhound) - he's my first dog and was chosen for me by the rescue, a big (31" tall, 39kg) ex-hare coursing and racing boy from Ireland who was then shipped to County Durham and abandoned in an allotment shed. Very, very wild prey drive particularly for cats, so he wears a muzzle at all times outside - but also deer, wild boar, etc etc.

About a year after getting him, I used to play fetch with him in a secure field and he loved mooching around in there, then one day someone's border terrier puppy squeezed through the gate and Joe went 'small brown furry thing!' and went for it, tumbling it over and making it squeal - which made it ten times more exciting of course. I had to dive in and haul Joe off, the other dog was fine and the owner was amazingly not that bothered (not sure she quite understood Joe's intent...) - and the terrier is still a nosy, confident little thing so didn't suffer from it thank god! I had not long before put Joe's muzzle back on and I still lie in bed sometimes, four years later, feeling a cold sweat about how he would've killed it without that muzzle, for sure. Awful moment.

He's what you might call a responsibility, but I love him so much. He took a long time to come out of his shell, didn't even wag his tail for months after coming home with me, but he's now the biggest, dopiest sweetheart and we have so much fun together.
 
CorvusCorax said:
Ditto. When I say my dog has changed my life, I really mean that, it's like having a second family, I have pals in Australia and South Africa because of him, and we couldn't have done anything at all without a good team around us.
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Ditto to this. I speak to some of ‘the corgi people’ more than other, closer, friends. They are how/why we now have Gus.

Madam is banned from all furniture after using her teeth when refusing to get off it. Needless to say she was made to get off it and I clearly have learned to have quick reflexes as did not get marked. The underpinning reason IMO? The other day I was in a rush as had an appointment, told her to get off the sofa to go into her crate - she blanked me, and I didn’t have time to correct it. In her brain, she won - therefore when then told to do so again yesterday, this was a problem. After being told off and given a time out, ignored for a bit until I saw something positive then used this as my way in to acknowledge her again, with lots of praise - she was the perfect, meek and mild, hound again.

I told this to someone in my walk today who said how beautifully calm and mild mannered she was. They struggled to believe me. Then, sheepishly, told me how their labradoodle has, IMO, redirected aggression eg when hyped up at the door knocking, or the leads being moved etc and bites quite badly.

Again - this false narrative of the perfect dog, does my nut in. I’m anything but sheepish when I tell people, I have a dog is an arse.
 
P3LH said:
Ditto to this. I speak to some of ‘the corgi people’ more than other, closer, friends. They are how/why we now have Gus.

Madam is banned from all furniture after using her teeth when refusing to get off it. Needless to say she was made to get off it and I clearly have learned to have quick reflexes as did not get marked. The underpinning reason IMO? The other day I was in a rush as had an appointment, told her to get off the sofa to go into her crate - she blanked me, and I didn’t have time to correct it. In her brain, she won - therefore when then told to do so again yesterday, this was a problem. After being told off and given a time out, ignored for a bit until I saw something positive then used this as my way in to acknowledge her again, with lots of praise - she was the perfect, meek and mild, hound again.

I told this to someone in my walk today who said how beautifully calm and mild mannered she was. They struggled to believe me. Then, sheepishly, told me how their labradoodle has, IMO, redirected aggression eg when hyped up at the door knocking, or the leads being moved etc and bites quite badly.

Again - this false narrative of the perfect dog, does my nut in. I’m anything but sheepish when I tell people, I have a dog is an arse.
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Madam sounds like a Rottweiler! You simply can't let anything slip with them, either. Not that any of the 3 that we have had would have dreamed of biting a person, or another dog, tbf, but give them an inch and you can guarantee that an mile will be taken.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Madam sounds like a Rottweiler! You simply can't let anything slip with them, either. Not that any of the 3 that we have had would have dreamed of biting a person, or another dog, tbf, but give them an inch and you can guarantee that an mile will be taken.
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She has made contact three times in her life and been shocked everytime. Each of them has been incidental more than as an act of volatility per say

As I always say, if a dog wanted to bite - they would. She likes to just throw her weight around at times and look n sound the part to see if it’ll work and she can get her way. When she realises she can’t, the notion of being a guard dog dissolves quite quickly. But she’ll give it her best shot at convincing you that she will chance it.

But yes, you can’t give her an inch. Ever. As she walks a mile with that inch chewed up in her mouth.

Ironically, I would say she generally has a good temperament. She is just wired in a naturally very challenging way, and isn’t programmed to be easy going - but again, I wouldn’t say she had a poor temperament. Just knows her mind and is very opinionated.
 
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