My menagerie

It occurred to me that some of my pets haven’t been featured on this blog for one reason or another. Some of them, like poor Trudy, whom we rescued from the Post Office, is just so shy and retiring that she seldom seems to get first place in the competition for attention around here. I love them all, and they all deserve top billing. So, in no particular order other than species and without any further ado, here comes the parade of pet pics!

Beanie Boy and Mr. Little

Heidi

Blossom

BigDog and I

Trudy Relaxing

Marley

Broodie (front), Harriet, Buttercup (white feathers) , & Holly (back)

Punkin

Miss Cuddles

Shadow

Dogs Show the Way to Happiness

You know, I come home pretty jaded sometimes. It has been a long day at work; things aren’t going the way I want, and I, generally, just feel crummy, hanging my head a little as I climb out of my pick-up and trudge toward the house. Then I run into the welcoming committee. It’s usually composed of half-a-dozen of my friends: BigDog, Miss Honey, Momma, BB, Trudy, and Mr. Little. They start up their happy dance & canine chorus the second they hear my truck coming up the street, and only turn up the volume as I get closer. When I walk up and open the gate, they rush me like a pack of fans rushing Elvis at a concert. If they could, they’d pass me around overhead like I was in a mosh pit or something. And the beautiful thing is that they’ll do this whether I’m gone five minutes or five days. They live totally in the present: they forgive me for leaving them and rejoice that I’m back. They never fail to bring me out of my funk while I wallow in the love they offer.

Momma Dog, BigDog, and Trudy

I need to be more like them and live in the moment. Right now, though, I am so lucky to have them in my life.

Can I Train the Aggressiveness out of a Dog?

BigDog the Lab is one friendly feller–to me and all my other doggies except one: Mr. Marley, the other Lab. Biggy isn’t so friendly to strangers like the UPS guy or Gayle’s nephew, people who happen to stray up to our fence gate, either. It’s the strangest thing. We got ol’ Biggy as a puppy after the police called us and wanted us to take this stray, a very little BigDog, before they had to take him to the shelter and meet his almost inevitable end. Of course, we took him, and he fit right in for several months.

BigDog the Puppy with Miss Honey, the Lab-mix

All of our canine guys & gals accepted him, including Marley, and everything was just fine until BigDog got big.

 

Big & son

One day, I was just sitting on the couch alternating between petting Biggy and Marley while watching TV. All of a sudden, Biggy leaped right over me and attacked poor ol’ Marley. The fight was on, too, with those two slashing at each other with those razor-sharp teeth like a pair of rival gang members wielding switchblades. It took a mighty effort from me to break them up and get them separated, and Marley was steadily getting the upper hand. By the time I got them pulled apart, BigDog was more than happy to get away from the mess he had begun. One would have thought he would have learned his lesson, but he has since repeated that behavior several times now, and each time Marley gained the upper hand shortly into each violent encounter. It’s to the point now that I have to keep them separated around the clock. Big would attack Marley the second he saw him. Marley, on the other hand, if past behavior is any indication, would wait to see if BigDog would attack or not. If not, fine; otherwise, he would finish whatever BigDog started. BigDog is the problem. Since I keep them separated, however, it’s not an issue. We haven’t had a “Big” fight in about a year now. I have three fenced-in yards, not to mention the house, and I keep everyone separated pretty easily.

Marley

Now, Gayle wants to give ol’ Biggy away so we don’t have to worry about forgetting who’s where and accidentally giving Big another shot at Marley. I’m scared to do that because you just don’t know, not really, how anyone is going to treat an adopted dog. I know, if he stays with me, that he’ll get plenty of food, shelter, medical care, and love. I would worry about him and feel guilty if I gave him away. That leaves two alternatives: the status quo of keeping the two separated for the next 10 years, or trying to modify Big’s behavior. I’m going for option #2.

The first thing I’m going to do is have Big neutered. I should have done it when we got him, but my company was failing, and I had very little money–very little. So we just kind of shrugged our shoulders and forgot about it. I’ve got another job now, so I can afford that again.

The second thing I’m going to try, post-neutering, is to put both of them in muzzles and let ’em hang out together in the backyard under my supervision. I’m going to try and do this relatively frequently and see if I can get them used to being around each other. I did this one time before, and BigDog went over and tried to bite Marley and finally gave up. Once BigDog figured out that he couldn’t put the bite on anyone, he and Marley appeared to do fairly well out there. So, I’m going to try that several times a week and attempt to get them conditioned to each other’s presence. Then we’ll go to leashes without the muzzles and see how things work then. Hey, it’s worth a shot.

We’ll see if it works.