Mrs. Jingle
Well-Known Member
Sorry this is an essay, but has to be for you to assess the problem I am having and hopefully come up with some idea to stop my dog having to be PTS. If you have any experience with dog training run aways, and can find time to read at some point, I will be very grateful for your input.
Some of you might remember that last year after the sudden loss of our young labrador and our aged Patterdale I was very lucky to be offered a very well bred 3 year old show lab who apparently 'took a strong dislike to showing', we have since worked out she probably bit the judge when manhandled, or something similar. She is not your typical laid back friendly lab except with us. An absolute big softy with us but very, very protective of all 4 adult members that live here at home, we do have to monitor very carefully that anyone walking past our home, yard and grazing fields in particular remain safe from her very over enthusiastic tendency to go into attack mode if she so much as spots a non family member on our boundary lines. But thats all under control, she is beautifully trained and we have no problem with her, particularly as we are very remote so do not have too many people around and about fortunately.
Coming from a breeder, she was at least kept in the company of 6 to 7 other labs at all times. She did seem to miss the company earlier on, and we do like to keep at least two dogs as a personal opinion that it is a more natural way to keep dogs. So once again I was very luckily offered (from another source altogether) a working trials bred lab of the same age. The elderly man we got her from claimed to be rehoming her because he now travels abroad a lot visiting various children scattered throughout the world. He also had her one and only pup she bred that was then 9 months old, he was keeping him as a son would take care of one dog for him when away, but not two. So we got the beautiful and very affectionate little bitch and we were delighted. She did have a very old and tatty leather collar on that was obviously being worn 24/7 with her ID disc. Owner did warn us at the handover, to keep her on a lead for first couple of weeks in case she made a run for it. Stupidly that did not ring any alarm bells and is what we would have done anyway with any new adult dog until we were sure of its recall etc. etc.
Within 6 weeks of having her it became very obvious Jessie (the little new dog) had the highest hunt drive I have ever witnessed, even against a terrier when its ratting she would stand out as very driven indeed. She killed 3 rats within the first 3 months of owning her, no problem with that, in fact a huge bonus! Her recall was non existent when off the lead in our yard or fields, if she picks up a scent she is gone and by gone I mean very high speed nose down and ploughing through any and every hedgerow or fencing there is. Once we had to clamber across ditches and streams to untangle her body harness from a neighbouring farmers sheep wire when we tracked her down by her yelps of distress. At this point, in view of the fact that we are surrounded by sheep and lambs, cows with calves etc. we knew if she escaped like this on a regular basis it would only be a matter of time until she was shot by some landowner in the vicinity. Another time she literally snapped the join on a very expensive extender lead and it took us hours to retrieve her. We tried many training methods, bearing in mind I did train collies for competition many years back, and also helping people to retrain dogs that had picked up issues along the way. So I am not a complete numpty with training out problem dogs. This one had me beat and broken hearted at her future safety. Before picking up a scent she was polite to lead, good to recall....but once that nose twitched that was the end of any hope of breaking through to her - she shut out any and all methods to keep her attention on you.
By then it was obvious she cannot be trusted off lead at all and non of us were prepared to keep a dog under those conditions, being restrained anytime she was outside, even up at the house. As I am now totally out of action for any heavy work for at least a year, and OH is now 80 and not in great health, one of our sons has very kindly spent a huge amount of brawn and expense creating for her a dog proof third to half an acre paddock by the house, that she and her pal Jem can play in all day long, hunting in the undergrowth, enjoying playtime with us with toys, retrieve etc. etc. so a good percentage of her day was now filled with at liberty hours of fun. She did spend the first couple of days hunting every boundary searching for an escape route but once she gave up she settled to the confines and was very happy with that, and she was still getting exercise down with the horses and around our fields but NEVER off lead outside her dog paddock.
Well within 3 weeks she scaled the 5 foot high fence to chase a neighbours cat all the way back to his yard, including ploughing through a hedge of tight packed Rosa Ragosa and barbed wire wound in and out of a hedge. She has no self preservation instinct, once she is hunting her brain totally shuts down. Luckily he was out that day and the poor cat managed to squeeze into a very low space under a pallet and my son caught her and brought her home again.
So once again my son increased the height of fence running a strip of electric tape along the top, hoping if she did try to scale the perimeter again the zap might deter her, unlikely but possible. Well all has seemed great for months now, she will scream hysterically with frustration is she picks up a trail in the paddock and cannot get further than the fence line. But lack of random long and fast hunts she has toned the hunt instinct down somewhat.
Last evening when out for their usual last toilet break before bedtime I took them out into the paddock for a bit of playtime etc. Suddenly she picked up a scent and to my horror she yet again scaled the fence, obviously would have got zapped, and pretty sure she did as she yelped as she went over the top. Well an hour or so later in rapidly declining light we spotted her way over in the distance circling some cows and calves I do not think she was worrying them, merely circumventing a safe way through their field, but had the farmer seen her he would not have given her intentions a thought and would have shot her regardless. Luckily my sons were able to sprint through the various fields to reach her and when close enough she did very surprisingly respond instantly to the whistle and ran straight to them and sat wagging her tail furiously and absolutely delighted to see them like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
This morning the rest of the family have decided yet again, they are going to build a second inner fence line, in the hope even if she scales this new inner fence she will then momentarily be caught in no mans land between the two fences and it might just give her pause for thought about continuing her escape.
So far so good...BUT and this is the heartbreaker for me, if this final attempt does not work then as much as they are also heartbroken they have taken the unilateral decision that the only kind and correct option is to have her PTS. It is now more than obvious that she will very quickly, if this continues, be shot anyway by neighbours protecting their livestock, and of course I cannot blame them for that being a rural dweller all my life. I have to reluctantly agree that this is probably her last chance, and it is very possibly why she was needing to be rehomed when we got her. I have also tracked down video of her being field trialed by her old owner , although he completely denies she was ever used as a working dog at all and was just his family pet! Our best guess is by 3 she had proven to be a runner, totally throwing aside any training, and would not recall as obviously totally zones out when on the scent of pretty much anything.
A friend who does field trials has also watched and worked her in the safety of her paddock and confirmed he is certain she has been worked previously, and that if she went rogue on a regular basis, she would more often than not be shot by him and other people engaged in this sport, and he personally would not have even bred from her in case he was breeding a litter with the inbuilt propensity to become a runner. Harsh but that is the reality here in rural Ireland, working dogs for the most part have to do the job they are bred for or thats the end for the poor dog. A few lucky ones get rehomed, as happened to us with little Jess.
My stance at the moment is I will not have her PTS full stop, whatever the rest of the family that lives here might say. I adore this little monkey but as they point out, a dog never, ever allowed to even wander its own home open space without a lead on is a very sorry life for any dog and borders on outright cruelty. For instance, OH went to pop them both out the back paddock for a bit of a run around to suddenly remember she will have to have her harness and lead on yet again, just to do have a quick toilet etc.
ANY ideas that I have not already tried please, please share them as it is rapidly becoming a very grim outlook for my lovely little Jessie. I am just heartbroken here knowing this is her last chance and pretty sure she will just scale the second fence too. Oh and we have tried shock collar lent by friend, hate the damn things, but we were desperate but she even ran through that until well out of range anyway. ?
Some of you might remember that last year after the sudden loss of our young labrador and our aged Patterdale I was very lucky to be offered a very well bred 3 year old show lab who apparently 'took a strong dislike to showing', we have since worked out she probably bit the judge when manhandled, or something similar. She is not your typical laid back friendly lab except with us. An absolute big softy with us but very, very protective of all 4 adult members that live here at home, we do have to monitor very carefully that anyone walking past our home, yard and grazing fields in particular remain safe from her very over enthusiastic tendency to go into attack mode if she so much as spots a non family member on our boundary lines. But thats all under control, she is beautifully trained and we have no problem with her, particularly as we are very remote so do not have too many people around and about fortunately.
Coming from a breeder, she was at least kept in the company of 6 to 7 other labs at all times. She did seem to miss the company earlier on, and we do like to keep at least two dogs as a personal opinion that it is a more natural way to keep dogs. So once again I was very luckily offered (from another source altogether) a working trials bred lab of the same age. The elderly man we got her from claimed to be rehoming her because he now travels abroad a lot visiting various children scattered throughout the world. He also had her one and only pup she bred that was then 9 months old, he was keeping him as a son would take care of one dog for him when away, but not two. So we got the beautiful and very affectionate little bitch and we were delighted. She did have a very old and tatty leather collar on that was obviously being worn 24/7 with her ID disc. Owner did warn us at the handover, to keep her on a lead for first couple of weeks in case she made a run for it. Stupidly that did not ring any alarm bells and is what we would have done anyway with any new adult dog until we were sure of its recall etc. etc.
Within 6 weeks of having her it became very obvious Jessie (the little new dog) had the highest hunt drive I have ever witnessed, even against a terrier when its ratting she would stand out as very driven indeed. She killed 3 rats within the first 3 months of owning her, no problem with that, in fact a huge bonus! Her recall was non existent when off the lead in our yard or fields, if she picks up a scent she is gone and by gone I mean very high speed nose down and ploughing through any and every hedgerow or fencing there is. Once we had to clamber across ditches and streams to untangle her body harness from a neighbouring farmers sheep wire when we tracked her down by her yelps of distress. At this point, in view of the fact that we are surrounded by sheep and lambs, cows with calves etc. we knew if she escaped like this on a regular basis it would only be a matter of time until she was shot by some landowner in the vicinity. Another time she literally snapped the join on a very expensive extender lead and it took us hours to retrieve her. We tried many training methods, bearing in mind I did train collies for competition many years back, and also helping people to retrain dogs that had picked up issues along the way. So I am not a complete numpty with training out problem dogs. This one had me beat and broken hearted at her future safety. Before picking up a scent she was polite to lead, good to recall....but once that nose twitched that was the end of any hope of breaking through to her - she shut out any and all methods to keep her attention on you.
By then it was obvious she cannot be trusted off lead at all and non of us were prepared to keep a dog under those conditions, being restrained anytime she was outside, even up at the house. As I am now totally out of action for any heavy work for at least a year, and OH is now 80 and not in great health, one of our sons has very kindly spent a huge amount of brawn and expense creating for her a dog proof third to half an acre paddock by the house, that she and her pal Jem can play in all day long, hunting in the undergrowth, enjoying playtime with us with toys, retrieve etc. etc. so a good percentage of her day was now filled with at liberty hours of fun. She did spend the first couple of days hunting every boundary searching for an escape route but once she gave up she settled to the confines and was very happy with that, and she was still getting exercise down with the horses and around our fields but NEVER off lead outside her dog paddock.
Well within 3 weeks she scaled the 5 foot high fence to chase a neighbours cat all the way back to his yard, including ploughing through a hedge of tight packed Rosa Ragosa and barbed wire wound in and out of a hedge. She has no self preservation instinct, once she is hunting her brain totally shuts down. Luckily he was out that day and the poor cat managed to squeeze into a very low space under a pallet and my son caught her and brought her home again.
So once again my son increased the height of fence running a strip of electric tape along the top, hoping if she did try to scale the perimeter again the zap might deter her, unlikely but possible. Well all has seemed great for months now, she will scream hysterically with frustration is she picks up a trail in the paddock and cannot get further than the fence line. But lack of random long and fast hunts she has toned the hunt instinct down somewhat.
Last evening when out for their usual last toilet break before bedtime I took them out into the paddock for a bit of playtime etc. Suddenly she picked up a scent and to my horror she yet again scaled the fence, obviously would have got zapped, and pretty sure she did as she yelped as she went over the top. Well an hour or so later in rapidly declining light we spotted her way over in the distance circling some cows and calves I do not think she was worrying them, merely circumventing a safe way through their field, but had the farmer seen her he would not have given her intentions a thought and would have shot her regardless. Luckily my sons were able to sprint through the various fields to reach her and when close enough she did very surprisingly respond instantly to the whistle and ran straight to them and sat wagging her tail furiously and absolutely delighted to see them like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
This morning the rest of the family have decided yet again, they are going to build a second inner fence line, in the hope even if she scales this new inner fence she will then momentarily be caught in no mans land between the two fences and it might just give her pause for thought about continuing her escape.
So far so good...BUT and this is the heartbreaker for me, if this final attempt does not work then as much as they are also heartbroken they have taken the unilateral decision that the only kind and correct option is to have her PTS. It is now more than obvious that she will very quickly, if this continues, be shot anyway by neighbours protecting their livestock, and of course I cannot blame them for that being a rural dweller all my life. I have to reluctantly agree that this is probably her last chance, and it is very possibly why she was needing to be rehomed when we got her. I have also tracked down video of her being field trialed by her old owner , although he completely denies she was ever used as a working dog at all and was just his family pet! Our best guess is by 3 she had proven to be a runner, totally throwing aside any training, and would not recall as obviously totally zones out when on the scent of pretty much anything.
A friend who does field trials has also watched and worked her in the safety of her paddock and confirmed he is certain she has been worked previously, and that if she went rogue on a regular basis, she would more often than not be shot by him and other people engaged in this sport, and he personally would not have even bred from her in case he was breeding a litter with the inbuilt propensity to become a runner. Harsh but that is the reality here in rural Ireland, working dogs for the most part have to do the job they are bred for or thats the end for the poor dog. A few lucky ones get rehomed, as happened to us with little Jess.
My stance at the moment is I will not have her PTS full stop, whatever the rest of the family that lives here might say. I adore this little monkey but as they point out, a dog never, ever allowed to even wander its own home open space without a lead on is a very sorry life for any dog and borders on outright cruelty. For instance, OH went to pop them both out the back paddock for a bit of a run around to suddenly remember she will have to have her harness and lead on yet again, just to do have a quick toilet etc.
ANY ideas that I have not already tried please, please share them as it is rapidly becoming a very grim outlook for my lovely little Jessie. I am just heartbroken here knowing this is her last chance and pretty sure she will just scale the second fence too. Oh and we have tried shock collar lent by friend, hate the damn things, but we were desperate but she even ran through that until well out of range anyway. ?
