New-ish

eddieboy · New-ish

Absolutely love the website and think that you are wonderful people and wanted to share my story with you.

Having come from a long line of dog rescuers, about this time last year, I took my family off to a well known dog charity and rehomed a 2 year old lab/collie x we named Eddie. He was very lovely and lovable but having previously been a stray he came with a few issues. The one I had most trouble with was his dog fear aggression. The charity said that he ‘wasn’t keen on dogs but once he got to know them he was fine’. Well, his reaction to other dogs was not good - he would bark and lunge at other dogs. However having grown up with rather grumpy dogs I felt it was an issue we would conquer.

I sought advice and took him to a course of obedience training classes (where we had to spend most of the lessons in a separate room to everyone else because his reaction was bad), which I thought might help. My theory was that if his recall was good, then that would allow him to meet other dogs at the park. (He was highly intelligent and only had to be taught a command a couple of times before he’d got it!) We did one-to-one sessions with a dog trainer and spent time out and about working on his dog fear aggression under controlled circumstances. However as the weeks passed the issue remained. I became obsessed with achieving a happy outcome, did more research on the net, got books out of the library and found myself watching Dog Borstal and Cesar Milan endlessly.

Selfishly I found the whole issue so upsetting. I’d set out on every walk with a huge amount of hope and come home very low because we seemed to make no progress at all. I did go back to the charity and seek their support but felt it was too little too late. They offered telephone for a while but had only one dog behaviourist who was very hard to get hold of. Eventually we were offered weekly sessions introducing us initially to non-threatening dogs and working up to more challenging ones. However at this point I was exhausted and emotional.

Ultimately I realised I was not the right owner for Eddie and with the heaviest heart and hugely frustrated at not being able to help I returned him. He’d been let down by someone at the beginning of his life and here was I letting him down again. I cried my head off.

I enquired and subsequently he had been rehomed. I didn’t realise how much it would affect me and how much of a huge whole he left in our hearts. I do still think of him often and how he's getting on.

We’ve since got a young Norfolk Terrier called Twiggy who is the polar opposite and a very, very easy dog. He’s low on brain cells but adores other dogs and people and thinks everyone is here to love him! Now Twiggy has the right temperament to live with another dog and would love it, but as you can imagine I’m a bit apprehensive…

Am enjoying the website and am arranging a small standing order.

Tina D