Life on Three Wheels

Not all that glitters is gold...

and not every relationship is perfect 100% of the time.

Dad's note:

Spirit is one year old now. I think we ran into some teenage attitude issues and hopefully they have been solved. As with any of our AARF dogs, it is important to match up Spirit with a forever home that will be a match for his personality. So I will record some issues we recently had to deal with and what was done to resolve them.

Readers should note, you don't get these details from the kennel based rescue groups! Home foster groups are the way to go.

It was mid summer when we noticed Spirit and Manny not getting along. We found out later that Manny was suffering through a flea allergy (Fleas are HORRIBLE this year due to Global Warming, its all Bush's fault.) Anyway, Manny was feeling run down and I wonder if Spirit was pushing things with him because of it. They had been the best of pals up to this point! Things grew to where Manny and Spirit had some serious snarling duels at the kitchen table. I didn't know what to do.

I have not had a ton of dog experience. The last time I had issues like this was when my first foster attempt failed due to fighting between Sadie and another alpha girl. Now I looked to be having the same type of thing happen on the boy's side. I was very concerned that my foster of Spirit was heading for disaster!

I asked for professional help and got it. Robert Jordan, a dog behaviorist in the Richmond area, donated his time to stop by a see what was going on.

He advised me to step up the NLIF treatment. Make all the dogs Sit/Stay before being allowed to eat. Have them eat together instead of apart as I was doing. The dogs were to Sit/Stay before being allowed out or back inside. I was to direct noses away from each other when the dogs were around me. I already did some NLIF, but not to that degree. I wondered if the change would even work.

IT DID!!! Just over a week later, the dogs were fine together. Manny, feeling a bit better with some flea medication was even seen playing with Spirit. Play bows even!

So just after that, Spirit started growling in his food bowl as he ate. Now I know food guarding is a real bad thing, and again got in touch with Robert. He quickly got back with me and gave me a few exercises with the food bowl to try. In short, handfeeding and dropping premium dog food into his bowl as he ate. Again, results could be measured in days!

So the only "issue" with Spirit is he is sometimes slow to warm up to strangers. For that reason, I am looking for a quieter forever home for Spirit. Reams of screaming kids running and slamming doors is not his cup of tea. The all night kegger people should adopt that insane Lab that loves everybody and everything...

Just recently, Spirit was kenneled as I went out of town for a couple of days. Spirit earned his way into the 'Perfect Pink Play Group there, which is all the happy and good dogs in a group. As I was leaving, one of the workers there did the happy snuzzle face kiss with Spirit, so even the stranger thing seems better that before.

I still often think of Spirit as a cat personality trapped in a dog's body.

Spirit has taught me a lot about dogs. And for someone involved with dog rescue, that's a good thing!