Dogster

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My Diary

Goodbye

Now looking back we should have realized what we were getting into.
I remember seeing a website for all kinds of dogs. They were so cute. It was a puppymill, just a cleaned up version so it wasn't at first noticable. I made the call and found out that they had the exact dog I had been looking for. A Shar-pei/beagle mix. They sent me pictures and I fell in love. We made the 2 hour drive and set eyes on a black cutie that was only a few weeks old. I found it strange that we were not allowed to go in by the mom. We paid ALOT of money and went back at christmas to pick the little guy up.
He was a sweetie pie for the first month. We socialized him and gave him lots of attention which wasn't hard with 5 kids in the house.
The first time I noticed a problem was when he was 12 weeks old. He growled at my daughter. At the same time we found out that he needed eye surgery which is common for Shar-pei's. At that time I brought up the growling. The vet said it was weird for such a young pup to growl. She said to make sure that we don't play rough with the dog and to make sure he knows we are boss.
By the time Meiko was 4 months old he was mean. He was good with our family... even our 2 year old. When strangers came over he would growl and he started to nip.
One day my friend came over and didn't knock. She walked in with her 5 year old. I was upstairs and by the time I came downstairs, Meiko had bit her child on the arm.
I went back to the vet and was very concerned. By this time we had to buy a muzzle and had a hard time taking him for a walk because he would try to attack anyone that came near him. I called the vet again and they were stumped as to why a 5 month old puppy would be so mean. We got Meiko fixed thinking maybe that would help. It didn't. I called a trainer in Oshkosh and we went to her training class. Meiko did really good. We noticed that when anyone looked him in the eyes he would growl. We worked on giving him treats but standing sideways and not looking at him. He seemed to be making progress. That good behavior didn't work for strangers that came to the door... even my friends or kid's friends. He didn't like anyone. I tried to incorporate the sideways treat behavior with people that came over. I had them not look at him and approach him slowly. It seemed to be working when out of nowhere he bit my Aunt's friend in the arm. I knew then that it was a lost cause. We put Meiko to sleep when he was 8 months old. I called the place we got him from the day before and didn't expect them to do anything I just wanted them to know. There reply was " wow we've never had that happen before, we will not be breeding that mix anymore, sorry."
I believe now that Meiko didn't have enough hand love. The first 8 weeks he was left alone with his brothers and sisters and mom and not much person contact. His mom probably passed on his hate for people.
Today would have been his first birthday. I feel so bad. Sorry Meiko and rest in peace.