We have had a rescue dog since September 2013. Did lots of research before we got her, took our time etc. Thought we had the right dog. Once we got her home she wasn't "the same dog" we had visited in the foster home. She was very difficult and made our lives hard and unpleasant.
Training has improved a lot of the actual problems, but I just don't like her, and I don't think I ever will. :( I am the one with primary responsibility for her, and the one at home most of the time. We live abraod where the school day is morning only, and have 3 young DC, so I will be home most of the day all the dog's life. She makes me enjoy my home less and makes me feel miserable the moment I walk up the drive.
I hate the way she jumps up and tries to walk under my feet every time I move about. I hate the fact that although she is not agressive at all with the DC she has no interest in or afinity with them - if they are ill or sad she doesn't do the doggie sympathy thing, instead she barks and tries to get between them and me, to stop me focussing on them and make me focus on her. I can now tell her to sit or put her outside - but she lacks the traits that make many dogs lovable IMO.
I enjoy walking her and don't mind feeding her (though I hate how she throws herself at the kitchen door at feeding time, and this is one we are not managing to stop). She has improved, behaviour wise, in the 5 months we've had her. But I don't like who she is :( The kids don't like her much because she doesn't seem to like them much - or rather she doesn't acknowledge they exist, adn they were so excited about getting a dog (the older 2 are 8 and 6 and old enough to interact sensibly with her, but she ignores them unless they are holding food or opening the front door...
Help! Has anyone been in this position and changed it. She's supposedly 2 years old, and certainly a young dog, I find myself thinking that she'll live the kids' whole childhoods and I will be a miserable git the whole time they are growing up becuase of my owen mistake in getting a dog, for all we thought about it for years before going for it and thought we had prepared. :( She is a mixed breed but somewhat cocker spaniel like, though finer boned. I walk her for an hour a day through forest, but she has selective hearing and when outside our property has no recall, so she is always on a lead. She responds to training well when everything is calm and quiet around her and she is in an enclosed place, but it goes out the window when there are distractions.
I wish every waking moment that we had never got a dog.
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The doghouse
Can you just be temperamentally incompatible with a dog?
61 replies
MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 13/01/2014 10:14
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