I haven’t posted anything here in forever, because I’ve been overwhelmed by work and unpaying projects. Here’s a quick update:
Piney gained 10 pounds since my last post!! TEN pounds on a formerly 50-pound dog = a lot. He looks positively husky now. One of my favorites at the day care he goes to said, “I can’t call him Spiney anymore.”
Ever since he gained all that weight (because of the phenobarbital and diazepam that he’s on) and started taking Gas-X, he seems about 200 times happier. But now that he feels so great about himself he’s lunging at strangers on the street way more frequently. The strangers don’t like that very much. Neither do I. But I think I make it worse for the strangers by acting totally cavalier about it. They’re scared out of their minds and I’m all casual, “Oh, sorry about that.” Yeah, whoops, you know how it is, crazy attack pit bull in a muzzle, ha ha. I mean, I pull him away before he gets anywhere near them, and he is always wearing said muzzle, so he couldn’t do any damage even if I let him. This was proved to me last week when he tried to attack a lovely friend of mine on the sidewalk. P has always been very sweet and gentle with this friend, so I didn’t even think about the fact that we were in front of my building, where P’s worst territorial aggression comes out, when we ran into him, and I didn’t get in between Other Human and the dog the way I usually do. So I finally got to see what happens when Piney attacks someone with his muzzle on: basically nothing. Except I feel horrible for several days.
Or maybe longer. Piney is getting much more comfortable with his trainer, Jolanta, and last time we met with her he started bringing his ball to her and dropping it right into her hand so she could throw it for him. This is MAJ for Piney. When Piney offers you his ball, you are IN. So that was a really happy thing, right? And yet, on the walk home, Jolanta and I were talking about our goals for P, and I realized that the best we can hope for is still not very good at all. He will never be a normal dog. He will always be on a lot of meds and wear a muzzle whenever he’s in public. We will never have people over to our apartment as long as he’s around. All of this is a lot to take in. As you might imagine.
6 comments:
Delighted to hear he is doing so much better! Could one of the drugs be making him more bold? Has he had crate training? That could reduce the problem about having others over, although I always feel bad when I crate our dogs. Just seems wrong, somehow...all the "experts" say it is their "cave" though, so maybe it isn't really a negative to the dog.
All of this is MUCH better than he faced before you and Ira took him on. You have done wonderful things for someone who had no future before. From Piney's point of view, life is great.
You are so nice, Karen. Thank you!
We housebroke Piney by crate-training him, but at some point, when he was 8 or 9 months old, he went from being OK in his crate to screaming bloody murder whenever we left him in there. And at that point he was housebroken, so we didn't see a need to force him to withstand it. So he hasn't seen the inside of a crate in several years. And I doubt he wants to again!
OK, so much for that idea. One of our dogs feels the same if you close the door, but she will sleep in there if you leave it open; not much practical use. No point in adding to his stress.
I'm so glad to hear the new meds are still improving the pinester's life. He (and you and Ira) deserve some quality time.
I understand your frustration about Pineapple's behavioral problems. Now that he's not on death's door you want to fix the other issues that his health concerns kind of pushed to the side. Especially now that he's feeling good and is more likely to act on his impulses then he was when he felt so bad all the time.
I wish I had so good advice. The only thing that I can think of is that now that his digestive problems have eased, he may be able to tolerate some mood altering meds that were too hard on his tummy before. I know you don't want a drug-addled dog but if his edges could just be softened a little bit it may make a big difference.
Just my 2 cents worth and I don't know what I'm talking about most of the time so take it for what it's worth.
Remember there is a cottage on Cape Cod that would welcome a visit from you and Piney any time.
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