For those of you who know Devi, you may know her as the sweet, happy, playful little girl that I know so well, or you may know her as the little Tasmanian Devil dog that has become a handful of twisting growling fur and teeth.
Thankfully, the latter is very infrequent, although never okay. It began with some growling and posturing when she was on her leash and another dog would get close enough to smell. She did great at the dog park right off the bat. Once in a while she would get in a tussle, but not bad and who knows why or who started it.
As she became more secure at home and with me, oddly enough, she began getting fiestier. The one that really set her off was my Mom's little dog Lady. Lady is approx. 14/15. She was a rescue in the fall of 2006 from Paws and it took awhile for her to bond with Mom. No one seems to know much about her past but she obviously decided she needed to be courted.
When Devi and Lady met I made a big mistake. I had just had Devi about a week. We entered Mom's apartment with Devi on leash. Lady was asleep on the floor next to Mom. The living area where we all were is pretty small. Lady sleeps pretty deeply, is hard of hearing and possibly has some loss of sight. Devi and I were about 3-4 ft. away from Lady when she woke up. The first thing Lady saw was a dog right there in front of her, in here house, watching her sleep! Man, who wouldn't have been grumpy.
Lady barked at Devi and that was all it took. Devi immediately went after Lady. It scared the heck out of me and I pulled her frantically back with the leash and yelled at her. Mom grabbed Lady and there was no damage except to my ego and all or our emotional states.
That incident set the tone for the relationship between Lady and Devi. Lady is a forgive and forget girl. She will bark and grump at Devi whenever they get face to face, but mostly she is happy to just stay out of Devi's way. Devi, on the other hand, even though she forgot about the immediate threat, will still go after Lady with, to my eye, no provocation. Just out of the blue. One minute every one is fine, going about their business, the next Devi is ready to pounce on Lady.
Obviously, this is very upsetting and so I have not taken her back to Mom's since the last nasty incident. Instead I called an animal behaviorist and have begun working with her on the leash aggression. After we get somewhere with that then we'll confront the issue with Lady.
After we began the training routine, which she seemed to respond to nicely, Devi had digestive trouble due to the treating involved. I got help and ideas from the behaviorist, Christine. Devi began to backtrack. Since I had to begin giving her treats that were basically her regular diet to keep from upsetting her, she lost interest.
Now, happily, we have found that microwave cooked, skinless chicken breast cut into tiny pieces is working great. We have also incorporated the "gentle leader" head halter which will help control her if she decides not to cooperate with the training. So far this system is working well. We are working hard to be polite canine citizens so that everyone will know her as the sweet girl that she is.
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