Because my life is a three ring circus and I am one of its unfunny clowns, two months ago my mother impulsively adopted a dog.
>female, spayed
>roughly 6 months old now
>seems to be predominantly Rhodesian Ridgeback in breed
>can't rule out something else in the bloodline though, since she's a shelter mutt and since her ridge isn't actually there, but she's identical in all other respects
Now, I was not originally opposed to this because I (mistakenly) thought that I would not be the only one trying to handle this animal, but of course I am. And my life has become a living hell ever since.
>mother leaves house
>drive pitbull to nearest kill shelter
>mother returns
>"Oh no, he ran away"
Problem solved.
I can help you
Btw, “Rhodesian Ridgeback” is what shelters like to call their pit mixes. My first puppy was a “Rhodesian Ridgeback mix” from the shelter and had to be put down for biting. Next puppy was from a breeder.
Poison the poor thing.
If you think she’s bad now she’ll be 10x worse later, and she’s bad because she’s miserable. Quite literally no solution here other than murder.
She’s going to end up neglected and I’m not going to be the one to say “well just man up and start running her 5 miles a day” because that’s not how it works. Animals need love first before anything else, and you’d need to love her to even get into the mindset to care for her.
Ridgebacks are working dogs from what I understand, and working dog and neglect always equals hell. Sorry I don’t have any actual advice for you op 🙁
Cute dog. Have you considered calling animal control on your own mother? It sounds like she's running quite a shifty menagerie of mistreated animals. Tell her to get her shit together and stop abusing animals or you'll have to take them away from her.
It's not a shifty menagerie of abused animals (anymore, anyway, we don't need to get into the horrors of my childhood in this thread). Just the cat (which is mine), the horse (which is hers), and now the dog (which is ????). But it is still a problem because she gives them all way too much leeway and doesn't work with them like they need. And then she gets irritated when said animals misbehave because she's not doing the bare minimum to manage them, and expects me to (somehow) pick up the slack despite me neither being experienced in the animal's care, or otherwise not interested since it wasn't/isn't my animal in the first place.
Unfortunately I live with her so I don't really get as much of a say in things unless I decide I don't want to eat for a month. Ain't disability life grand?
>Animals need love first before anything else, and you’d need to love her to even get into the mindset to care for her.
I mean even my irritation at being saddled with a responsibility I didn't ask for aside, I want to like this dog and interact with her more, genuinely I do. But I also don't know how to foster that when all attempts at interaction have resulted in behaviors I otherwise don't want to encourage, you know? Like even trying to pet her results in nipping and I have no idea how to react to that. I don't want to resort to hitting her, that's only going to make it worse, but obviously if I don't do *something* to discourage her she's going to get more aggressive, so what do I do here?
Thus the asking for help.
Post pic of this dog. Almost guaranteed there are shitbull genetics overpowering anything else in it.
Sorry I don't have anything better lit. This is the most recent one, from a week or two ago. We've been keeping her in the mudroom/laundry area because of the aforementioned constant shitting/pissing.
I don't see any pit bull in her myself, but I also don't know as much about dog breeds, it could still be there, and I mean, shelters lie when they're trying to force adoptions.
thats a pibbie skull mate.
Are you sure? Because I've been dreading if she's a pit mix, I don't want to have to deal with that, especially since I have a cat too - and no, thankfully he does not have contact with her, before anyone thinks I'm that fucking stupid. I intended to do limited social contact between them once I got a handle on her behavior. But if she's pit mix I'm not giving them any contact at all.
...but also, if she's got pit in her I might be able to convince my mother we can get rid of her. Our shitty former methhead neighbors had full-blooded pitbulls and they killed at least two of our animals before they were put down (a chicken and a barn cat, unfortunately, the guy's daddy was friends with the cops, so Animal Control conveniently "lost" the paperwork on that case).
I have more pictures if anyone can tell for sure.
The shelter one and this one were from when we first got her a few months ago.
Yeah, there's pit in her. Ridgebacks have more like wide lab skulls, and nothing resembling rose ears.
I can't lie, anon. There are definitely some genetics from some kind of "nanny dog" in that little fucker, can't guarantee it's a shitbull but definitely related. If it's six months old and still hasn't picked up on the basics like don't shit in your bed, it's not looking good.
I know you mentioned disability, anon. Without sounding rude, is this something which could get in the way of you having to deal with this dog? For example, can you actually take it on a very long walk to burn energy or will you struggle to read behavioural clues? It's just that not every dog is suited for every person and having an animal that doesn't gel with you results in a living nightmare for you and the animal. One tip that I can give is socialising him with a dog bigger than him who won't take shit from him but is still a well behaved dog. He will probably stop the nipping a bit once another dog has essentially pinned him down and threatened him for it.
Forgot to mention, if it is seriously not responding to training then you really only have two options. Send it to a professional trainer or get rid of it. I have a family member who has a shitbull mix, it hasn't been trained properly as well as not being exercised properly and it's hell to be around. It has no off switch and will tear things apart and jump on people, scratching them with its claws. It's not an aggressive animal but since it hasn't been trained, it makes life hell. I don't visit anymore because I just hate dealing with it and that family member can't do much as a result because they can't leave it on its own because it's not cage trained and it needs 24/7 supervision.
Sorry for late replies, the horse decided to convince everyone he was colicking when in reality the fucker's just teething.
>If it's six months old and still hasn't picked up on the basics like don't shit in your bed, it's not looking good.
In slight dog defense, she was four months old and dumped at the shelter about a few weeks before we adopted her (she was a street pickup), so I'm assuming that neither the shelter nor whoever bred her did absolutely any training before dumping her.
The shitting in the crate we put her in at night is actually a new development, but she does shit in the general mudroom area we've been keeping her in. The pissing in both the crate and on the floor has been constant, though, I genuinely have no idea how to curb that short of limiting water intake, and I'm not sure if that's a safe idea. We live in a hot state so dehydration is a risk.
>I know you mentioned disability, anon. Without sounding rude, is this something which could get in the way of you having to deal with this dog? For example, can you actually take it on a very long walk to burn energy or will you struggle to read behavioural clues?
It's definitely a valid concern. I admit I don't know a lot of dog behavioral cues like I do cats, but those feel learnable at least. The lacking physical stamina (as well as weight issues) is the bigger problem, however. Doctors have been going back and forth claiming it's either a thyroid malfunction or a general hormonal imbalance, but can't make anything definite due to insurance rejecting so many treatments/tests. Some days the pain and fatigue is so bad that I can't do much than go to the bathroom.
...I'm actually starting to suspect my mother might have even gotten the dog to encourage me to "get out more"/"be more active" under the idea that's what causes the pain/weight issues and not the fucking malfunctioning organs pumping me full of inflammation. Hm. Deal with that later.
>One tip that I can give is socialising him with a dog bigger than him who won't take shit from him but is still a well behaved dog. He will probably stop the nipping a bit once another dog has essentially pinned him down and threatened him for it.
I don't think getting another dog when we can barely handle the one is a good idea. But the pinning idea does have some merit, I'm definitely going to try that, since she's still small enough.
I will also say since we have the horse, we also have a significant amount of land she could run around on. The problem is letting her off leash because of the aforementioned "everything go into mouth" activity and the fact that the land is rural enough to have a lot of wildlife. Raccoons, possums, large birds of prey (owls, hawks, and eagles alike), hogs, and of course, snakes. Which, you know, don't exactly respect fences or barriers and would easily cross into an animal's "yard" and could cause injury or disease to her. I've been working on setting up an area in the garage, though (it's a big garage, no cars), to give her more space to work off her energy and to make a more easily 'supervisable' play/training area.
>Forgot to mention, if it is seriously not responding to training then you really only have two options. Send it to a professional trainer or get rid of it.
Any advice for finding/vetting trainers if it comes to that? I don't want to get scammed by some Cesar Milan wannabe or some lady who wants you to treat dogs like babies, I've seen enough of that with the horse trainers around here as it is.
>I've seen enough of that with the horse trainers around here
Honestly, if you know a good horse trainer just ask them for help, especially if they are the type that is big into doing extensive ground work to train horses. The techniques are pretty broadly applicable to training a dog, it’s just the bits that take advantage of horse herd dynamics that aren’t as applicable.
She has resisted ALL attempts at housebreaking. I've tried food reward, I've tried food deprivation, I've tried crating, I've tried that praise and scold shit. She has now taken to shitting and pissing *in* the crate. When she gets walked, she has more interest in sniffing and finding things to chew on than actually, you know, shitting. I am so tired of constantly cleaning up piss and dog shit.
She chews. And I mean. *Chews.* She's destroyed so many toys, even those kinds meant for "tough chewers", and if she finds something else in her reach, she'll chew and shred that too. She ripped the stuffing out of her bed, she's ripped the fabric off tennis balls of every conceivable size, she's unraveled tug-o-war ropes, she rips squeakers out of toys I didn't think it was possible to rip out. And when she runs out of shit to destroy she turns to her environment. Her current 'thing' is slowly stripping the wallpaper off the walls for some reason. She will also, while outside, try to fit literally anything into her mouth. Random trash. Sticks. Pinecones. Horseshit. If I don't stop her or take it away from her, it goes into the mouth.
She's feral. I have to wrestle her just to put her leash on, she bites at pantlegs/shoes if you walk around her, she bites at my hands because she thinks I've got food/training treats for some reason. Strains at her leash to the point she's choked herself out before. Jumps up on people despite shoving her off and telling her no.
The one thing I've managed to teach her is how to wait for her food, but that's about it.
Does Wauf have better advice than those trying to sell me on their fucking "obedience course" scams, at least? I feel like I've been saddled with an unruly furry toddler I didn't ask for, but I cannot just get rid of her since my mother will throw a fit.
(God, I hate this captcha system.)
Oh, one more thing, which is a very specific problem for this dog in particular: thinks my mother's horse (that she also impulsively got, but that's a whole different clown car we don't need to fucking open the door of right now) is a giant dog. Has attempted to play with him, which he doesn't care for, considering it involves her trying to jump up at his face. Also tears up yard because she'll see him grazing and somehow associates it in her dumb little mind that "giant dog tears up grass = I need to tear up grass" so she'll rip up plants/grass with her teeth or aggressively dig around in areas he walks through for some reason.
It sounds like your horse will solve your dog problem pretty soon with a hoof to the skull.
I mean that'd be one solution, considering he punches holes in the fucking garage wall like an abusive boyfriend (and my mother excuses this behavior like a battered spouse), but I also don't really want to be in the "splash zone" if that happens (I don't take this mutt out except on leash), nor do I want to be on the fucking hook for a shitton of vet bills that will inevitably result from the cost of diagnosing/euthanizing that.
Tried pinning her down as punishment? They hate that yet it is harmless, and should quickly teach her not to be a wanker. You may even want to, god forbid it, get a shock collar
Most chew toys are utter shit, btw, it's not that strange for a young dog to rip through toys
>a fucking horse
Okay, what the fuck?
I have not tried the pinning. That oddly worked with the cat's biting, pinning him/holding him in a way so he wouldn't be able to bite as easily, so that might be something to try. Maybe not shock collars though, I know they were attempted on a childhood dog but were found ineffective (granted it was a shitty cheap one), but at the same time quality standards have deteriorated so much that if I tried to find something cost effective I don't want to give her, like, horrific burn sores or some shit from it. I'm frustrated, but not sadistic.
Also yes, a horse. We're out in the sticks. My family has land and has always had horses. I'm not a fan of it either.