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Originally Posted by matese  The booties at Maggies age you will need lots of patience and consistency in putting them on, even if it's just in the house so she gets use to the feel of somethings on her feet. Make sure you get the right size for her. alaskayorkie ads Velcro around the bootie to help them stay on. They are the funniest things when you put booties on their feet for the first time and they "try" to walk. Have treats on hand for every step she takes with the booties on, cheerios is a great training treat. Just one cheerio per reward.
If Maggie is food aggressive towards Sasha i would feed them apart, if she's ok around Sasha but food aggressive around other dogs I would not give her any food like a taste or treat while another dog is around.
Always remember, Maggie is a rescue, her past is not known to you. I have my rescue 4 years now and I am still learning new things about him and I know who his prev. owner are, know his past history,he was not a stray, but I am seeing things in him I never saw before, so still learning his likes and dislikes. You will be learning new things about Maggie the longer you have her. |
Honestly... this is going to sound weird, but the closer I get to her... the more she feels a little bit of myself.
Defensive, cautious, protective, selective of people/friends, in a ways a mix of short tempered yet highly tolerant. Tolerant for most things, but things that are her off switch and she goes balistically mad.
A few weeks back she got so furious at my brother she bit his heel. Kind of like a nip. She chased him around. But I think it was only because he raised his tone with me and I felt highly uncomfortable and probably upset too. But like I used to be, her bark is worse than her bite.
She's easily spooked by things and she's quite alert. Not in a terrified way alert. More like observant of her surroundings. What weirds me out is, I have poor eye sight but my hearing is a lot better. I guess from not blasting music like people of my generation typically do?
So whenever someones pulling up in the driveway and I am in the livingroom or even my bedroom-- I am usually the first one to be aware of it. The second one would be maggie, and the third one would be sasha. Sasha only responds if she hears a door close or someone walking close to the door- which she reacts by barking. Maggie doesnt bark but you can tell she knows someone is there. If someone goes in and she cant see who it is-- she goes in what I call defensive mode. Defensive mode is usually initiated with a few steps.
First step is she observes the individual or the potential threat.
Second step is if it walks farther in than say the couch by the entrance-- she starts growling.
Third step is if its a perceived strep and it doesnt heed the warning her growl gets more vicious and its as if shes breathing air in while doing it (Through her mouth)
Fourth step if it gets closer it starts barking.
Fifth and last step is if gets any closer than that she will immediately go after the person and bite them either in their heels, hands, legs, and any other sensitive area.
I notice she has 3 types of growls. One is kind of like a Bleep off kind of growl, the second would be the you're overstepping her boundaries and now shes mad kind of growl, the third growl is the one where she cant contain any longer and shes as angry as it can be which is usually followed by biting.
So far she's only bit him, and it's because he's sort of instigated her a few times. Now she doesn't because I am not in the picture. Like if shes alone she wont bother with him, but if shes by me she will get defensive.
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The other day the neighbors behind us who are nice and all (they're these old nice people) had their family over and two of their grandchildren were being complete asshats, primarily the older one (he appeared to be either 18-20).
The older one was taunting her and purposely making noise like clapping his hand (in a way that you would to try to startle someone/something), then he went by the fence with a stick and started hitting the fence with the stick. Man I had to go back inside because I was fuming mad and I think she picked up on that and she went to the fourth defense.
I had to wait until later that night to walk em outside to do their business because when I took em out it was 4 and they were still there until like 9:30pm.
Now it makes me wonder if these are the same kind of people who would piss off a dog on purpose, then if the dog bit them they'd sue the family and ask for the dog to be put down like it happened to one guy here in NJ.
A dog is supposed to be trained, but that doesn't mean a dog should be put down because they bit some jerk. Like I forget who it was on here who had their neighbor constantly harassing the dog by the window.
P.s. she never had clothes on before and she tolerated it when I first put it on her. She just chewed on it the first few days. Now shes okay with it. I assume the same will be for the shoes.
P.s.s. I dont think shes aggressive. Just defensive. I can definitely say she's had a lot of trauma.