Attitudinal Change

My dog is a wonderful dog, and I’m really tired of feeling like I have to defend her to people who don’t know her. Yes, she had issues as a puppy (and frankly, I’m amazed I didn’t kill her before her first birthday), and yes, she can still be a real snot sometimes. But you know what? She’s an alpha female German Shepherd. That’s just how they are. She’ll be like that for the rest of her life. Reyna is sweet, loving, friendly, frighteningly intelligent, stubborn, and a hard worker. She’s even becoming more of a couch cuddler as she gets older.

Following on the heels of the Sylvie/Drill Team “Reyna’s a liability” issue comes a multi-email discussion I had last night with a girl on the board of a rescue group that I’ve volunteered with and fostered dogs for.

She sent out a foster home plea yesterday for an absolutely gorgeous 8-month-old female GSD. After thinking about it for a while, I sent an email saying I would take her, and hopefully, she and Reyna would get along. Mind you, that was not said out of concern for my dog’s “attitude” problems, but because I know sometimes dogs just don’t like each other, just like people don’t get along with everyone. And strong female GSDs don’t always hit off really well. But the description of the pup did not make her sound like a strong female. It said she was being bullied by the male GSD she lived with. No alpha female is going to tolerate that.

When I got home, I’d still not gotten a response, which was unusual, so I emailed her again and asked if anything had been decided. She said no one else had offered to foster her, but she didn’t want the pup in my house because Reyna has issues with dogs that challenge her, like Gus did. She also said she’d rather we didn’t foster a dog that hadn’t already been fostered by someone else, so we’d know about that dog’s temperament. I hate to break it to her, but even dogs with great temperaments don’t always get along.

Let me explain quickly about Gus. He was a very large GSD mix that I agreed to foster. Very sweet with people, most of the time. He jumped my fence twice, tried to break through my hall door to get to my cats, and tried to bite my neighbor when he put Gus back in his crate – turns out he had confinement issues. On top of that, he humped Reyna incessantly, and bullied her as much as possible. She didn’t respond in her normal fashion (by putting him down), which worried me. Made me think she knew something wasn’t right with him. The last night he spent at our house, they had played as usual, and Reyna was sleeping on the floor by my chair. With no warning at all, Gus attacked her. And it wasn’t play fighting. I had to separate them (I know, I know, never separate fighting dogs by yourself, but what was I supposed to do…wait until he got tired of mauling my dog?), and he bit me in the arm. Once I got them apart, and everyone calmed down, I called the rescue and told them Gus had to leave. He ended up spending almost a month boarding at the vet, and came very close to being put to sleep. Even the vet commented that Gus must have just been responding to Reyna’s dominant response to his challenge. Um, hello? She was ASLEEP. I’ve heard he’s doing well, now, as long as he’s kept away from crates, cats, kids, dogs that are more alpha, and walked on a leash for exercise. Needless to say, no one has adopted him yet, he’s still being fostered.

So, I took offense that someone would use the Gus incident to decide Reyna had dominance issues. I pointed out that she’d never had trouble with any other foster dogs, and that she tolerated Gus’ crap a lot better than I did, and that the fight with him wasn’t her responding to a dominance challenge, it was her fighting for her life from a vicious, unprovoked attack. The girl then said that we all know Reyna is very choosy about who she lets share her space (aren’t we all?). I reminded her that Reyna has never started a fight for no reason, although she is more than willing to finish one. She doesn’t bully dogs, or pick on them. If she doesn’t like them, she simply ignores them. She will enforce the house rules, however. I also pointed out that I am more than capable of controlling my animals, and know how to work around any issues that come up. No response.

At the same time, I was talking to another girl who works for the rescue, about something else entirely, and was telling her a bit about what was passing through the emails. She said that she was told the pup was a “high energy bratty female GSD” and so she had decided against fostering her. She also said she thought more information had been discovered about the dog. So I sent the first girl an email, asking if that was true, that she had more information about the dog than what she had given me. No response.

This morning, I withdrew my offer to foster. I told her I did not appreciate feeling like I had to defend Reyna for being herself, nor did I like feeling that the rescue didn’t trust me to control my animals. I also told her I was concerned that she didn’t seem to be sharing all of the information about the dog with me.

I’ll probably end up pulling my name from the foster list. If they don’t want to place anyone in my house on the basis of one bad incident, then I don’t need to be seeing all the emails of dogs that need help, knowing I won’t be allowed to do anything about it.

I’ve also decided that there will be no more explanations of how Reyna’s come so far since she was a puppy, no more descriptions of how many obedience classes we’ve taken to get here, no defending her to people who make assumptions about her because of one action or just because she’s a GSD. My dog is wonderful, and if people can’t recognize that and appreciate her for what she is, that’s their loss, not ours.