When we first got Mississippi, she wouldn’t look Tom in the eye. Occasionally he’d be doing something non threatening like playing with his keys and Mississippi would cower. Sometimes she’d bark like crazy at certain men when we pass by them on the sidewalk. We think she definitely had an abusive male in her life before we got her. Now she’s warmed up to Tom and she barks less at strangers. But I think maybe her previous opinions of men vs. women is making my job pretty difficult. She behaves a little better around Tom than around me. She tends to treat me more like another dog and less like her leader sometimes. We’ve had some pretty bad meltdowns on walks in the last couple days where she decides she’s the one holding the leash. She’ll bite it and yank on it. I have to stop, turn away from her and wait until she calms down. It’s difficult to get her to sit or listen to me when she’s like that.
She seems to put her teeth around my arm more than Tom. She hasn’t broken skin but she’s not afraid to use a little pressure. I’ve seen her release the ball in her mouth long enough to bite me, then go right back and pick up the ball. Whenever she starts playing rough like this, play time is over. But she just gets more angry and frustrated. She hasn’t figured out the connection between her bad behavior and play time stopping.
She has what I call temper tantrums around me more than Tom, where she just absolutely won’t listen or pay attention no matter how great the reward or how stern the scolding. I’ve tried good cop and bad cop with her, and nothing seems to help. She’s gotten out of the house on my watch twice now, and she won’t come back when I call her. She’s downright dangerous to herself and others and is completely frustrating. It seems she must have either had a softy woman in her life or was never disciplined or trained by a woman.
I spend so much time during the week with her while Tom is at work. I brush her, feed her, make her food. I (attempt to) cut her nails, clean off her eye boogers, I train her, walk her, massage her, play in the backyard with her, but sometimes she shows me no respect. I won’t tolerate it but it seems the only thing I can do is shut her out. I close the door to my office, I run errands without her. And it seems the more time I spend near her but not with her makes her more and more frustrated with me. It becomes difficult to taker her for walks because she won’t listen to me.
I don’t think it’s exactly a positive thing that she behaves better around Tom than around me. He thinks she’s afraid of him and that is why she behaves better. I don’t want her to be afraid of me or him, but honestly sometimes it seems to only way I can get her to listen is if I try and put a little fear of god in her. I use my divine power voice and that usually does the trick. I’m just trying to hold on until we can figure out a better way to get through to her.
This weekend we went to a couple of dog parks and took her to Columbia River Gorge for a hike. The trail was narrow and we had to hang on to her when people walked by so she didn’t cover them in mud with her jumping. The hike went pretty well except for some leash tugging. She had a pretty great time at the dog parks. She plays pretty well with other dogs but tends to get a little OCD sometimes. On Friday morning I witnessed her chasing down another dog relentlessly. The dog had its tail between its legs and the hair was standing up on its back. At the other parks she found dogs who were more of her match. She had great fun with a Great Dane who loved to be chased. Yesterday she got to run with a pack of dogs very similar to her. One dog named Porter could have been her brother.
Since it seems she’s generally pretty good around other dogs, maybe it’s time to get her doing some short stints at doggy day care. I don’t think it’s going to get her to respect me, but maybe it’ll get some of her general frustration out.
I’m getting really, really tired of hearing the phrase “well, you know what Cesar Millan would say.” Eff Cesar Millan. We’ve had this dog 3 weeks now. She is 1-2 years old and is a border collie mix. It is the most challenging time for this breed. Her life before us is a mystery. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t trained past learning to sit and shake hands. She was probably left alone most of the time and doesn’t understand that attention from doing bad things isn’t as good as the attention she gets from doing good things. Her behavior issues came with her. It’s now our responsibility to change her attitude, but it’s not going to happen over night. The notion that anything she does that’s bad is totally our fault, just makes my blood boil. The next time you want to blame an owner of a rescue dog for their dog’s behavior, go get yourself a rescue dog and shut the eff up. We’re doing our best. We’re saving a life. It’s going to take some time until she learns how to shine. Just wanted to get that off my chest.
We had a pretty great weekend all in all. It started to seem like we were getting a handle on this dog. We continue to make progress but today is just a reminder that upward trends have dips as well as jumps. ‘Up and to the right’ isn’t always a straight shot.