Bastard Dog Club

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

Roll up, roll up! Anyone who has a Bastard Dog sign in here! Does your dog hate other dogs? Does he or she bark, lunge, growl or actually want to eat other canines? Are you regularly stressed, embarassed or rocking in a corner by your Bastard Dog's antics? Then this is your safe zone. Come hither and share your tales of woe, and also hopefully your successes.

Give us some background, thus:

BD breed: Spaniel cross
BD age: 18 months
BD behaviour: Jumps at approaching dogs and tells them to fuck off in a very vocal way.
BD training attempts: We're working on BAT, using tons of treats and actively avoiding interactions.
Frequency of BD incidents: Probably some kind of reaction every month or so, usually my fault.

Now, who's for gin?

[nevermindthecrocodiles]

Please can I join? Or am I too late to the party
BD Breed: supposedly a jack russell, but a bit of a 'Heinz 57" in reality.
BD Age: 20 months
BD Behaviour: hates all other canines and launches herself at any that pass - including mahoosive great dane- size dogs. Also, on the other hand, is completely completely in love with toddlers and babies and attempts to get into prams and pushchairs with them.....

We have been going to training classes but she is oblivious - she just gets into the trainers daughters pram and they snuggle together and ignore everything else! Frustrated yet adoring. She is essentially a toddler in a fur coat.

Gin please, make mine a double triple!

[gymmummy64]

Well I guess if all of us on here put a yellow something on their dog and then told everyone who asked what it was for... pyramid selling

Gymdog would look quite fetching in a yellow bandana I think.. .

So, with Scuttle's comments elsewhere tonight in mind as well, I think we might step up and be yellow!

[gymmummy64]

Aww never your dog sounds absolutely gorgeous challenging. Does she really try to get into strange kids' pushchairs? Stick with the BD club I reckon - AIBU would shred you!!

[springlamb]

Can I join, only just found you.

BD Breed: Yorkshire/Lakeland terrier X
BD Age: 18 months
BD's Behaviour: Winds up Big Dog by pretending there are intruders; chews every toy to smithereens within 10 minutes; chews the corners of cushions; jumps crazily onto anybody whilst shouting 'DOG PILE' very yappily.

Big Dog is a lovely 8 yr old golden retriever who only barked once a week before Little Dog arrived. Now he is in a constant state of flux due to being called upon to Defend Territory which is a tough job when you're a coward.

[ExitPursuedByABear]

Well my BD spent nearly an hour swimming across two reservoirs in pursuit of Canada Geese today. Eventually came out but then went the wrong way trying to find me - he followed the scent the wrong way . He is now sleeping under my chair, doing that wimpy dreaming thing. He is very unsettled so I have pointed out to him that he is getting to old for this malarkey.

[nevermindthecrocodiles]

gymnummy yes she really does! It's very embarrassing. Fortunately she loves & is very gentle with children. We live in a small village so all the mums know her now & are very chilled out (DCs love snuggling with her apparently!) I will never take her out in the town though, would be absolutely terrifying to have a strange dog leap at your child. I tend to carry her when we're around kids we don't know, or in the street etc.

[foolonthehill]

after weeks and weeks of being perfect dog I dared to walk foolish dog in the nearer but much doggier park today. (as have no time and this gives her a longer walk). Whilst explaining to a lovely lady who i have not seen for ages that "I don't walk with people" because Foolishdog is a BD "and I need to greet and move on"...she (FD) went for her (the friend's) JRT stood over him foot on chest etc. etc.

argh
I am SO stupid.....

that is all
as you were

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

Oh fool :( We've all had set backs. Honestly. I have had similar cock ups, and come home in tears. Was the other dog hurt? How was the owner with you?

[gymmummy64]

I relate totally fool

I have now trained DCs to chant phrases such as 'don't push it mum', 'the river didn't work last time', 'stick with what he knows' etc whenever I come up with a bright idea like a new park. Other non-dog related useful aide memoires include 'NO, NO, remember the last time you went to Ikea on a Saturday', 'Don't forget what happened the last time you tried DIY' etc

But as exDP so encouragingly remarked once, 'Gym, not all your ideas are bad'

[foolonthehill]

lots of noise and snarling..JRT not hurt and my BD was foolishly standing wagging away looking very happy and pleased with herself...much as she does when she brings me her teddy in the morning .

other owner was ok...but as this park is very close to DC school i know everyone and soo wanted not to have reputation as an owner with "that sort of dog" especially as she is an angel with children.....

FD is just not quite BD enough...she behaves perfectly for ages and ages and then unexpectedly turns Bastard...for no apparent reason...unless JRT was being rude in dog......!

[ExitPursuedByABear]

Did I mention that my BastardDog had caught a Canada Goose the other week? Well, the body has been lying in a distant field for some time now (clearly not many foxes round here) and he only retrieved the effing thing yesterday! I had revisted the same walk for the first time and he suddenly shot under the fence and disappeared, only to return with the sodding thing - I presume the cold weather has kept it from decomposing. There was a bit of audience on the canal towpath so I was shouting "Leave it boy, it has been there for weeks hasn't it" so that people didn't think he had just caught it. He struggled to get it under the fence so he jumped the barbed wire and then dragged it under . I had to put him on the lead and march him smartly away. So apologies to anyone who comes across the corpse of a Canada Goose on a footpath

[ExitPursuedByABear]

And the shar pei I mentioned - the family decided to get rid of it so I suggested they find a rescue, which she did, but he put it back on Gum Tree Poor bloody dog.

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

There would have been a reason, fool, but it isn't always apparent. My BD is exactly the same. Lots of 'Raaaaaaah!' and chasing but thankfully no actual damage. The sudden BD behaviour is such a kick in the teeth when they've been doing well, but try not to get disheartened. Work out what went wrong, and learn from it.

Exit, I love your BD's determination. He really, really wants you to have that goose

[foolonthehill]

Poor shar pei.

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

:( Disaster, Exit.

[gymmummy64]

Exit could I delicately enquire how the goose actually met its, er, death? My BD has not yet met geese (never will if I have anything to do with it) but it would be good to know how bad it might get. Are we talking drowning? strangulation? neck breaking? Or just general ravaging?

[thegriffon]

Exit - you've got a Good Dog not a BD . My lab would never give up anything remotely edible he's found, and he does seem to have a knack for finding stuff, e.g. rotting duck excavated from river mud this morning. He parades in front of me with it, woofs if I try to grab it, or him, then manages to stay just out of reach while he eats the lot.

[ExitPursuedByABear]

No idea gym - like all good spaniels he doesn't cause any real harm, except of course by keeping hold of them when they are alive. His first encounter with a Canada Goose was in a farm yard when he was a puppy - the goose could not fly so just played dead and pupply as too small to pick it up.

In the most recent incident the goose was already injured, hence why it was seperated from the flock (on the wrong side of a swamp and two barbed wire fences) and could not fly. BD normally ignores flocks of geese, but he set off for this one with great determination, jumping two barbed wire fences and swimming a swamp so he knew it was vulnerable. It couldn't fly but flapped away from him and he caught it, gathered it up in his mouth and carried it to me. Strangely, although he has never been trained, he does react to the command 'Dead' as used in the field, and dropped the goose. It was not dead but on the wrong side of a fence from me so I had no choice but to leave it to its fate. I suppose it died from general ravaging, but not immediately. Days later I returned past the field and could see the body near the swamp, so it had managed to get up and move after we left.

I always imagine that they die from shock.

I console myself with the fact that the goose was never going to be able to fly and would have met its end one way or another, but I do feel hideous guilt. And I speak as someone who has rescued three racing pigeons and various mammals.

BD now generally ignores ducks and only goes into the canal or river if there are Canada Geese. I am wondering what he will move onto next.

[Floralnomad]

gym with my BD and birds I think they die of shock whilst being shaken and generally ravaged , apparently shaking something by the neck whilst banging its head on the ground is the preferred method here. He's still trying to get hold of a cat to see if the same approach will work with them .

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

Thankfully, Jas is scared of most big birds. He has caught two of my chickens though. Neither was injured, although if I hadn't intervened they would have died of shock. He was merrily lobbing them up in the air and then fetching them again. He got his arse pecked by a swan last summer, and that has somewhat put him off waterfowl. Cats kick his arse as well.

[ExitPursuedByABear]

Mine definitely needs his arse kicking by something.

A couple of summers ago we were on the south coast and he leapt into the sea in pursuit of a swan. He was determinedly paddling after it, not realising that 35 of its mates had appeared round the corner and were swimming close behind him. Oh what a shock he had when he glanced back to check where I was . I was really worried that they might attack him, but he beat a hasty reatreat.

[gymmummy64]

Exit perhaps cormorants? pelicans?

Oh dear it does sound as if there's a whole world of waterfowl experiences waiting for me. I've largely avoided water since October because of the absconding risk but Gymdog hadn't really got focussed on water birds back then. He was more at a squirrel stage..

However, he's now highly interested. Moorhens seem to get him going the most but he heard a couple of geese flying overhead last week and was transfixed. I'm just hoping his ability lags behind his interest, he's no spaniel after all.

[gymmummy64]

Exit I have to confess to feeling a certain admiration for your spaniel..

[Pandemoniaa]

Can I join? Only while my BD is much improved (age seems to have induced sloth) he was an Utter Git at his worst. He's a JRT who behaved very well (if noisily) until teenage hit. At which point he discovered hunting and developed selective hearing. The three hours spent on open downland in the freezing cold, pelting rain and pitch dark while he "hunted" round a series of bushes is burnt into the memory. As is the day that he suddenly decided to go rabbiting in a nature reserve, wouldn't be caught and then disappeared from view only to emerge on a mercifully quiet road where he walked up someone's garden path and invited himself in. After a pleasant sleep on their sofa, shamefully, he was collected by the Dog Warden. Oh, and the time he walked himself into a well known card shop where they gave him biscuits. The day that our neighbour insisted on introducing him to their chickens didn't end well either.

I did huge amounts of recall training but terriers are rarely interested in food if the alternative is hours spent under a hedge hunting for invisible prey. For some long time he was walked on a lead and even now (at nearly 8) I don't trust him in open country although he's fine in town. He's very good with children and other dogs too but completely untrustworthy with sofa cushions. For some reason they have to be rogered within an inch of their lives.

I'm now about to rehome a beautiful Collie X/Blue Heeler pup. I am probably bonkers.

[Floralnomad]

I'm not sure mine will ever meet an animal or bird that he doesn't think he can take on ,the only thing that scares him is vacuum cleaners ( of any size or shape) . At least he is good with people .