We are having an unplanned and unwanted pissing contest at the Mannerly Mutts home. Our dog, Leon, who is normally perfect and unproblematic has felt the change in the winds lately as a bit of a reorganizing of Jack's privileges has been instituted.
Having multiple dogs can sometimes be a big pain in the arse. It all stems from my problem child, Jack, our Doberman rescue. When he came to us, he had a multitude of issues. One charming thing that he did was every kind of peeing behavior one could think of. He had house training issues, marking issues, submissive peeing issues, and excited peeing issues. Yippeee yahooo. Who would not want to have to deal with that, right? On top of that Jack had three blockage operations before coming here due to his indiscriminate swallowing, and he has just a bit of dog aggression. For the months of July 08, Aug 08, and Sept 08 everything was in sync for once and peaceful. Then one day, Logan, a daycare Rottie, and Jack collided in the woods in a frenzy of racing and playing dogs. Only Jack didn't take to kindly to this, and they were off. Jack came out with some small punctures on his neck, and Logan had a good sized bite on his leg. Not good.
Since then, Leon, our other Dobe boy, has become Jack's favorite punching bag. After three weeks of three separate attempts by Jack to attack Leon over other dogs or toys, ending in a puncture would below Leon's ear, we decided that a whole host of privileges needed to be taken away and a whole lot of freedom. Jack's training has also begun to encompass more than just his open training that was going on. I think some of the retrieve work is making Jack just a bit resource guarding about stuff as well.
So I have been doing a lot of the retrieve training exercises with food, hoping to kill two birds with one stone. These items are so irresistible to Jack, that I am hoping his guarding will become less around Leon, as Leon really does nothing to deserve this. This is why Jack's freedom has been limited quite a bit to allow Leon to feel safe and confident in his own home again.
So after that overly long explanation of the changes in the household, it has become apparent that Leon is trying to say something. It has not been surprising that Jack began marking especially when my husband forgets to heel him on leash to the door in the morning. What is surprising is that Leon has joined in the party starting with peeing on my client the other day!! Awesome, such a proud moment. Then this has continued to marking the box that holds the dog equipment, to the side of the stairs in the family room, to the.....
So now I have one dog in lock down mode, as we call it with Jack, and another that needs to be re taught the proper place to mark or pee EVER. The good thing is that Leon has a tell when he has done it. He does this thing that we call the "dukey dance". Normally he does this outside after he goes number two, but we have found these things after some dukey dances inside our house.
NOT good times right now.
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