So, We're Having Issues

Leah's behavior appears to be degrading. She is chasing our cats more frequently, and I sometimes wonder if this is partly due to her frustration over the ever growing cat colony that resides next door to us. When she's in the yard, Leah rarely wants to play anymore, focusing all of her attention on patrolling the fence line for feral felines.

In the house, she often springs to her feet to chase our own cats without provocation. Of course, we never allow this behavior, and a sharp verbal interruption is enough to halt the chase and have her turn to us with a look that says, "Oh, sorry. Forgot you were in the room." When we're not home, we've taken to gating Leah in the kitchen with a baby gate, that way the cats can safely hang out in the back part of our house away from her.

This seems to be preventing catastrophe with the cats, but Leah has been having other problems.

She has been bullying Toby. The best way I can think to describe this is overzealous, pushy play - or I should clarify - it is play on Leah's part. Certainly not in Toby's eyes. Every once in a while she just targets him, chases him down, grabs him by the back of the neck and tries to throw him to the ground. It's some twisted game on her part that has been happening with ever increasing frequency. We, of course, don't allow this either, which leads me, in a roundabout way, to our next issue.

You might remember back in early December when Leah put a hole in Toby's ear, but I didn't see what started the attack. What I didn't find time to blog about was that later that same week Leah and Meadow had a bad fight, and once again, I didn't see who started it. The strange thing about the fight was, I was sitting right here in my customary spot on the sofa, staring at my laptop, and the girls were on their mats on the floor in front of me, sleeping as far as I know.

Next thing I know they were fighting, and bad.

Previous to that fight, Leah and Meadow had two minor fights within the first year after we adopted Miss Meadow, but both times a sharp, "Leah, leave it!" broke them up. It was more a display than anything, with no real injuries. This time, however, neither dog responded to my shrieks of "Leave it!", "Stop!", "Knock it off!" or "Leave it!" again - so I grabbed the nearest thing - my cup of cold coffee - and I doused them.

That stopped them both in their tracks. While Leah looked around in horror because she was suddenly wet, Toby materialized and both he and Meadow raced to see who could lap up the most coffee and catch a caffeine buzz before I could mop up the spill.

Since Leah was involved in both fights, I was certainly suspicious, but I didn't see what started either one, and I had no choice but to let it go. After all, I had already increased Leah's "Nothing in Life is Free" program after the incident with Toby - what else could I do?

That is, until New Year's Day, when an unexpected chain of events led to disaster.

Nick and I brought all three dogs out in the yard to play and let them relieve themselves, our normal routine, after which we planned to take Leah and Meadow for a walk while Toby enjoyed a food filled toy in his crate.

We never did get around to that walk.

First, Leah started bullying Toby, just as described above.

I yelled at her to "Leave it," and, frustrated with how she had been treating him lately, I grabbed her by the collar and silently escorted her out of the back yard. I gated her in the front yard as a time out of sorts, where she could see me and Nick playing with the other two, but couldn't get involved.

After a few minutes, someone walked through the woods adjacent to our property, and Leah barked menacingly at him, warning him away. I told her, "Thanks, enough," and she went silent, but in hindsight, I'm sure the incident helped to rouse her up.

A few more minutes passed, when I decided to end the time out. I let her return to the back yard, and I noticed Meadow running towards her to greet her. Her usual, "Where were you? I missed you?" sort of thing. I turned my back to throw a toy for Toby, and next thing I knew, Nick was yelling and the girls were going at it. I hurried over, poor Meadow was on her back, trying to fight off Leah, both of them were growling and snapping at one another. Nick and I are tried unsuccessfully to grab tails, (hard to do with a V), hoping to pull them apart, while yelling at both of them to "Leave it!" and "Knock it off!" 

Neither dog listened.

Nick started to aim the citronella spray that he had in his back pocket because we had planned for a walk and we have a lot of stray dogs in our area, when suddenly, the girls stopped fighting. But as Leah tried to walk away, she got tangled in Meadow's long line, and turned back towards Meadow, snarling. Luckily, a simultaneous sharp verbal interruption from both Nick and I stopped her in her tracks, and she allowed us to intervene and untangle her.

Once they were apart, Meadow was trembling from fear, and frankly, so was I.

As we began checking them for wounds, Nick explained what he had witnessed. Meadow ran over to Leah to greet her, and Leah squared off her shoulders and gave her a hard stare. Meadow stopped short and started to turn away from the threat. Surprisingly, Leah jabbed Meadow very hard in the rear with her nose. Meadow continued to curl away from Leah in a very a obvious calming signal. Instead of respecting the signal, Leah leapt on top of her and attacked her.

While digesting Nick's startling account, I helped him clean and treat wounds. One cut just shy of Meadow's eye, another inside her ear, and one deep puncture on Leah's muzzle. None that needed stitches, thankfully.

Finally, one of us had seen the start of a fight, and obviously, Leah was the antagonist. Something needed to be done - and fast.

Lesli, Meadow's former foster mom and the owner and head trainer at Red Dog Solutions, phoned me, and she and I spoke in detail, pondering the why? behind Leah's behavior. Age? Health? Neurological? Behavioral? All possibilities which we considered, but at her age, it is so hard to know anything for sure. As Lesli finally pointed out to me, with no clear answer as to what went wrong in sight, it was more important to look at the now, and try to implement a treatment plan. Sadly, if it is a neurological issue, its going to get worse, and then we'll have our answer.

Lesli gave me a great deal of advice, including lowering Leah's stress levels as much as possible by using a DAP spray and keeping her confined in an X-Pen when we can't properly supervise or during times of high arousal - like meal times. She also reminded me to be more proactive, rather than reactive, by asking Leah to "Look" at me and rewarding her when she breaks her focus on either Meadow or the cats, rather than saying "Leave it!" after she bolts after a cat, or shoots a dirty glance at Meadow  - which she has been doing since the fight.

I also contacted Debi Feliziani, a local trainer who is very experienced in aggression, and she will be doing a private consult with us here at the house in a few weeks. In Debi's opinion as well, if it is a neurological issue, we should be seeing more signs...a head tilt, an unstable gait, etc. So I tried to think of anything that might indicate an issue. Granted, Leah is still making "the noise" from time to time, but considering that her drooling and groaning stopped right after she rid herself of the chunk of Nylabone, and since "the noise" has drastically decreased since that day, Nick and I had chalked it up to habit. She only does it rarely, sometimes, less than 1X per week. Wracking my brain, I tried to think if there was anything else - and I remembered that I have noticed this startled twitching thing that Leah has been doing when I first reach out to pet her lately, and she's also grown intolerant of being brushed - an event she used to enjoy.

So, it's back to the vet for one more look-see.

In the meantime, both Lesli and Debi suggested that I take Leah for walks while Nick plays with the other two, both to keep the peace, and to give Leah some one on one time with me - a suggestion I've taken to heart and plan to continue doing until we have our sit down with Debi. I've also removed her from Nose Work classes as a "just in case" - given how she barks and lunges when people are too close to her crate.

Two less stressful situations to worry about, for Leah, and for me.

I had hoped to start the New Year off right, planning to concentrate on eating better, walkng my dogs more often, (which coincidently, I'm doing now), and finishing my novel. Instead, on the very first day, everything fell apart. Let's hope this isn't an omen of what's to come.

Leah wearing a DAP covered bandana inside an X-pen that my friend Bev was nice enough to lend me. The hangdog expression on her face is from me pointing the camera at her, not from being confined. In all actuality, she is doing rather well with the idea of having her own "place." Maybe, as has been suggested to me, giving Leah a spot where the other animals can't pester her will help to alleviate some stress. After all, she's twelve. She's a large breed dog. In human years, she's probably around ninety. She may just be tired, achy, a little grumpy, and growing weary of being surrounded by young, energetic animals.

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