[life] It's a Dog Eat Dog Life

[seeksadventure]

As I've talked about before, Izzy is not a huge fan of other dogs. (Well, that's not entirely true; she was fine with other dogs at the off-leash dog parks in Kansas City, as long as she was off leash. Once she was leashed, while we arrived or left, she was as barky as ever. And she likes my dad's dog.) We're still working on getting her used to individual dogs. Since we moved, there's not as many dogs out and about on the street for her to deal with, even though the neighborhood is full of dogs. (There is a dog in the house behind this one. She doesn't bark at it, even when it yips and yaps all day, but she does growl sometimes when it's getting loud.)

This morning, we had a visit from a dog right in our backyard. It's not fully fenced, there's an open spot near the driveway, but Izzy doesn't run off, so as long as I'm sitting in the front living room, which J gave me for my space, she can go in and out the open sliding door. She started acting weird and stalked outside, but no barking and no attacking anything. Still, her behavior was strange enough I went to check on her, and found a big male dog just hanging out. Izzy didn't attack him, didn't even really bark at him until I brought her inside, but she did not want to let him near the house or me. She did come straight back to me when I called, which I wasn't sure she'd do faced with an actual threat.

Though he was collared (it looked like one of the jump rings had broken, letting him off a yard chain), he didn't have any sort of identification. I tried to get a leash on him, but he thought it was a big game, and he took off before I could get close enough to touch.

So, Izzy protected the house without attacking another dog, and came back as soon as she was called, even though she was face to face with a threat. I'm so proud of her! (It's a good thing she didn't attack, too; she probably could have won the fight, but he was a big, heavy dog, and he could have done serious damage.)

Of course, when we went for a ride this afternoon, she freaked out over a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man, so.

Niece is supposed to move in this summer with her dog, so we'll see how that socialization goes.

Comments

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yay, good doggie!

I hope that kind of appropriate behavior becomes more of the norm for her.

[carlamlee.livejournal.com]

Me too! Thanks. I mean, appropriate behavior or not toward other dogs, she's always a delight, but it would be useful if she calmed down. If nothing else, she could go more places with me, which we'd both enjoy.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Those flailing tube people are terrifying, I can't blame her!

[carlamlee.livejournal.com]

Ha! Good point. I saw it first, and did think about how freaky it would be, and then she stuck her head out the window on that side, and yeah, apparently freaky.

[jazzminarino.livejournal.com]

I'm doing something similar with my cat. I can appreciate that a cat is not a dog, but I'm trying to socialize her more so we can have visiting pets. I'm also planning on flying her in May, so we did some exposure therapy yesterday in her new carrier at Pet Smart.

IT'S WAVY ARMS MAN! I'm amused she had to protect you from that, but then again, that would be a pretty terrifying human to encounter!

[carlamlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, dude, cat socialization is super important. I don't have any because allergies, and I'm more of a dog person anyway, but my sisters have cats, and the socialization process can be just as hard. Especially because cats go into carriers so often; Izzy at least doesn't have to deal with that. (She's too big for a carrier.)

The wavy arms man thing was almost as funny as the time we drove past a concrete bigfoot (only about three feet tall), and she nearly went out the window at it. SCARY STUFF, MAN.