Okay, I have a lot of background information, so bare with me, please.
Avery is our almost 2 year old doberman-coohound mix. My husband adopted her from someone he works with who didn't have the means, the know-how or the compassion to be a responsible pet owner. They lived in less-than-favourable conditions and often had couch-surfers and what not. The dog wasn't treated very well, this was evident to us when we went to pick her up, and she cowered, ran to a corner, tucked her tail and peed when my husband tried to leash her.
As an interjection, I was very against bringing this dog into our home (at least permanently). She came to us the day after we moved into our home (Our first home, we bought it) and I was 14 weeks pregnant at the time. She was a 6 month old puppy. I didn't have the time or the energy to put forth into training a new puppy. I wasn't against adding an older dog to our family (We already had a 5 year old Lab X), but a puppy was beyond what I was ready to invest my precious energy into.
But my husband promised me that he'd deal with it all- cleaning up the pee on the rug, having her vaccinated and spayed, etc. So I digressed. Shouldn't have done that.
We've had Avery for just over a year now, and in that span of time she has:
-jumped the barriers we set up for her (she is deer-like in body shape) and eaten literally everything that she could get to- she can reach our upper cabinets in the kitchen, open them and help herself to everything on the lower shelf
-she has gnawed off a large chunk of baseboard in our front entry way, the bannister going up the stairs and the decorative railings that enclose the loft portion of our bedroom
-she has pushed out the fence boards in our backyard and taken herself for a walk down the street and plunked herself down in the middle of a busy intersection and completely HALTING traffic in all four directions.
-She ate a rock in January, it blocked her intestines, she completely ruined our carpets upstairs and down with the unbelievable amount of putrid smelling vomit, and then it cost us $3000 to have it removed
And last night she ended up at the emergency vet AGAIN, had eaten something that disagreed with her, had a serious case of diarrhea which led to severe rectal bleeding (I know, gross, sorry!). I had her crated while I met a cousin for lunch, got home and our home REEKED of poop, and went upstairs and she had pooped all inside her crate and she was COVERED in it, so I had to manouvre the crate down the stairs with her in it and out the door and hose the both of them down.
We don't know what to do about this dog. She is a very nice dog, she is SO GOOD with our daughter, she is loving and gentle and for the most part quiet (Though she is a hound and has separation anxiety and when crated alone has been known to howl) and has a very good grasp on basic obedience (sit, come, lie down, walks fabulously on a leash, and believe it or not, knows "leave it"). But it's as if she has a hole in her stomach or some strange obsessive compulsion to eat EVERYTHING. We absolutely have to watch her like a hawk or she has to be in her crate. We cannot even trust her to be unsupervised while we go to the bathroom, or if I have to go upstairs to change my daughter's diaper or put her down for a nap, or else she WILL eat something.
We've even tried humane muzzles. She got into the cat food while wearing it, clogged up all the holes with the wet food, and then shook, trying to get it out and got cat food on EVERY surface of our bedroom.
We are at wits end with her. We can't afford the seemingly never ending vet bills from all the stuff she eats (Edible and non-edible) and it's only a matter of time before she eats something poisonous and we don't catch it soon enough.
What can I do about this dog? This sob story puppy that I didn't want int the first place but that Ic an't bring myself to rehome since all my life I've believed that people who rehome pets are irresponsible pet owners and we aren't! I just don't know what to do anymore...
Avery is our almost 2 year old doberman-coohound mix. My husband adopted her from someone he works with who didn't have the means, the know-how or the compassion to be a responsible pet owner. They lived in less-than-favourable conditions and often had couch-surfers and what not. The dog wasn't treated very well, this was evident to us when we went to pick her up, and she cowered, ran to a corner, tucked her tail and peed when my husband tried to leash her.
As an interjection, I was very against bringing this dog into our home (at least permanently). She came to us the day after we moved into our home (Our first home, we bought it) and I was 14 weeks pregnant at the time. She was a 6 month old puppy. I didn't have the time or the energy to put forth into training a new puppy. I wasn't against adding an older dog to our family (We already had a 5 year old Lab X), but a puppy was beyond what I was ready to invest my precious energy into.
But my husband promised me that he'd deal with it all- cleaning up the pee on the rug, having her vaccinated and spayed, etc. So I digressed. Shouldn't have done that.
We've had Avery for just over a year now, and in that span of time she has:
-jumped the barriers we set up for her (she is deer-like in body shape) and eaten literally everything that she could get to- she can reach our upper cabinets in the kitchen, open them and help herself to everything on the lower shelf
-she has gnawed off a large chunk of baseboard in our front entry way, the bannister going up the stairs and the decorative railings that enclose the loft portion of our bedroom
-she has pushed out the fence boards in our backyard and taken herself for a walk down the street and plunked herself down in the middle of a busy intersection and completely HALTING traffic in all four directions.
-She ate a rock in January, it blocked her intestines, she completely ruined our carpets upstairs and down with the unbelievable amount of putrid smelling vomit, and then it cost us $3000 to have it removed
And last night she ended up at the emergency vet AGAIN, had eaten something that disagreed with her, had a serious case of diarrhea which led to severe rectal bleeding (I know, gross, sorry!). I had her crated while I met a cousin for lunch, got home and our home REEKED of poop, and went upstairs and she had pooped all inside her crate and she was COVERED in it, so I had to manouvre the crate down the stairs with her in it and out the door and hose the both of them down.
We don't know what to do about this dog. She is a very nice dog, she is SO GOOD with our daughter, she is loving and gentle and for the most part quiet (Though she is a hound and has separation anxiety and when crated alone has been known to howl) and has a very good grasp on basic obedience (sit, come, lie down, walks fabulously on a leash, and believe it or not, knows "leave it"). But it's as if she has a hole in her stomach or some strange obsessive compulsion to eat EVERYTHING. We absolutely have to watch her like a hawk or she has to be in her crate. We cannot even trust her to be unsupervised while we go to the bathroom, or if I have to go upstairs to change my daughter's diaper or put her down for a nap, or else she WILL eat something.
We've even tried humane muzzles. She got into the cat food while wearing it, clogged up all the holes with the wet food, and then shook, trying to get it out and got cat food on EVERY surface of our bedroom.
We are at wits end with her. We can't afford the seemingly never ending vet bills from all the stuff she eats (Edible and non-edible) and it's only a matter of time before she eats something poisonous and we don't catch it soon enough.
What can I do about this dog? This sob story puppy that I didn't want int the first place but that Ic an't bring myself to rehome since all my life I've believed that people who rehome pets are irresponsible pet owners and we aren't! I just don't know what to do anymore...
It sounds to me like she can live a happy life with your family, though I'm sure at tmes it will be frustrating.
