Not my dogs! Accepting a new life of crate and rotate.

I believe that when you acquire a dog, you have that dog for its lifetime, no matter what. After living with my three dogs with no issues for years, I begun to develop a bias that truly gave me a false sense of security that although my dogs were to be considered, “project dogs”, I’d never have issue with any of them not getting along. This past December my partner and I were truly placed in an unfortunate situation when our two younger dogs, Stannis and Nina, attacked our older dog, Boris. The injuries were substantial enough to land Boris in the emergency vet, requiring surgery and with the follow up appointments and additional appointments for Stannis and Nina, I ended up spending close to $3,000 just before Christmas.

With years of declaring, “Not my dogs!”, when I’d hear about awful, similar situations I now was faced with a new reality. I now had two dogs I safely couldn’t have with my oldest dog, all three can’t be with my cats, two are significantly afraid of people, and one has a potentially life threatening blood disorder. None of these dogs were suitable for rehoming and I was in no way going to consider euthanizing any of them.  I’ve lived with project dogs for most of my adult years, meaning that I live with dogs who exhibit dog and human aggression- I was already living life strictly managed but now my partner and I had to ask ourselves: Can we live life on crate and rotate? That was a question that for the first couple of weeks, we didn’t really have a concrete answer to. Naturally, the first weeks were stressful and uncertain, we have a small living space and we weren’t sure how comfortable the dogs would be with one of them in the crate and one out. We also had to come to terms with the fact that our whole lives had changed, and were essentially in mourning for the family we once loved and knew. I couldn’t bare to look at photos of them all together, happy and goofy. Pictures of them all cuddled up and sleeping with each other. Videos of them playing. I couldn’t stop myself from getting lost in my thoughts, constantly asking myself, “What did I do wrong?”. I felt an immense amount of shame after the fight happened, I worked many years at a dog daycare and training facility. I am familiar with dog behavior and have broken up my fair share of dog fights working at a daycare facility. With all the knowledge and experience I’ve accrued I found myself assuming that I should have known better, that there was something different I could have done to make the situation less traumatic- What, exactly that could have been, I do not know, but I found myself constantly beating myself up for it. Not my dogs, how could it be?

With all the judgment I placed upon myself, I begun to loose sight of a very real fact about dogs that I often found myself telling people who asked me for training advice: Dogs aren’t inherently bad, they’re not inherently good- Dogs are inherently dogs. That means that sometimes they’re going to fight, and maybe those fights are going to be bad. While I see my dogs as big ol’ babies, they’re still powerful animals with teeth. It was hard to separate my emotions after the fight- it was hard not to label my dogs as “good” or “bad”- but if I wanted to fully understand the gravity of the situation and keep my dogs, boyfriend and myself safe without anthropomorphizing their actions, I had to realize that while the situation was awful, it’s not uncommon and given the damage that was done- it may happen again if I didn’t choose to crate and rotate. That fight was what seemed like hours, and there was a point where I thought if I didn’t get them apart, they’d kill Boris- I wasn’t going to ever put Boris, my toher dogs, or my boyfriend in that situation ever again. So that’s how we came to the decision to crate and rotate. Because we love all our dogs and we don’t ever want to see them in pain or fear like that ever again.

It’s been about three months into crate and rotate with my dogs, and we’ve been lucky with how smoothly it’s been going. That doesn’t mean we have had some kinks to work out. Now that they’re on crate and rotate, their activity levels have decreased as they spend more time in the crates. To combat weight gain and kennel stress we’ve converted all their food into work to eat food puzzles and they get their meals through training as well. We try to get them out of their crates as much as possible, making sure they all have equal time out daily. Now that we can’t give them quantity of time- we focus on the quality of time that we spend with them. Sure, some days we just spend cuddling and watching tv (especially with how cold it’s been here back in the Northeast), but most days we try to fill their time with walks, time outside in the backyard playing fetch or with a flirt pole, or trick training inside. We’ve invested money in finding long lasting enrichment items such as bully sticks, marrow bones, Kongs, and other chews (my hams really like the natural rawhide rolls from Raw Feeding Miami). We’re also looking for someone who can come let them out individually during the day for some backyard time or for a good walk around the neighborhood. All of these efforts have lead to my three dogs quietly relaxing in their crates when the other dog is out, which was not something we had when they all three were together. We’ve come to the conclusion that enrichment is the key to keeping our dogs (and us) happy and sane. Our enrichment plan is always changing as we discover new games, toys, and chews that the dogs may like. We try to mix it up each time they’re out, but even the dogs have their favorite activities that we just can’t say “no” to doing over and over again.

Having to make the decision to crate and rotate your dogs after a bad fight is never an easy one. And everyday I am so thankful that I have my dogs still with me, a partner who is supportive and helpful (even when he wasn’t sure if this was something he wanted to sign on for), and a group of supportive people who are there to lend an ear when I have to vent or I feel sad about the situation. If there’s one piece of advice I can give to someone who is experiencing a similar situation to mine, it’s take care of yourself too. You all went through a traumatic experience that will take some time to get used to. And just like any other new experience, you’ll become used to it, it becomes second nature. Crate and rotate isn’t for everyone, and sometimes it takes a village to make it work- but if rehoming your dog is not an option for you and are up for the hard work that it is, you can make these situations work. All it takes is some compassion, some creativity, and a little help from professionals and friends. We’ll continue to blog about the various enrichment activities and other topics that come along with crate and rotate as they arise! Hopefully we can help someone else out there who’s in the same boat as we are.

Can reactive and fearful dogs be ambassadors?

When we think of breed ambassadors, we picture a dog who’s essentially “perfect” in every way imaginable. They certainly have no behavioral issues to speak of, right? Breed ambassadors are one of a kind, capable of meeting anyone or anything without any problems whatsoever.  As the owner of reactive, fearful dogs I never thought or considered my dogs to be breed ambassadors. That is until I changed my idea of what a breed ambassador can be.

I believe that when you own a fearful or reactive dog your call to be an ambassador is even greater. While there most certainly are rockstar dogs out there who are making great strides for this breed, there are also many pit bull type dogs who are capable of amazing things that may be reactive or fearful. It’s our job to get the message out there that all dogs are individuals and that means that sometimes they’re going to be fearful of people or maybe they bark at dogs whenever they see them-AND that we can change that by using humane training methods to obtain more desirable (or shall I say ambassador-like?) behavior. It’s our job to show the diversity of these dogs by making an effort to do more with our dogs, whether that means teaching your dogs tricks or taking them through a beginner agility class or simply working on helping them become more comfortable and confident in their environment.

When I got Nina, she was an adolescent dog who was people and dog reactive. She didn’t have a lot of confidence and a lot of things scared her. In class, we had full barriers around her otherwise she’d go over threshold. Thankfully I knew more than what I did with Boris and Nina has never been trained with pain. While Nina wasn’t the dog that could go out and meet tons of new people, we set out to change people’s minds about pit bulls by showing just how versatile they are when it comes to training. We worked on tricks, we worked on dog sports, we did basic obedience and she had a blast doing it all. Focusing on training, we were starting to discover Nina had become an ambassador in her own way. With the help of force free training Nina has made epic improvements with her issues. In class she no longer needs any visual barriers, she can be around people and dogs without barking, and along the way has learned some really cool tricks. We work on advocating for not only humane training methods but going out and doing more with your dog as well. Reactive and fearful dogs don’t need to be locked away from the world, they need understanding, compassion, and some yummy chicken. My hopes in working with Nina and sharing that with people is that those with fearful and reactive dogs are inspired to work more with their dogs and help them build confidence.

What I’ve come to discover is that ambassadors, like dogs, are individuals and that there are so many amazing breed ambassadors who are doing all different kinds of awesome things out there waiting to be discovered. We as owners just need to make the decision on whether or not we’re willing to answer the call. Will you answer?