The Buddha, part 2

TFHU was married before we became roommates (again, we had lived together {as roommates} quite some years before) and he went and got himself a Rottweiller pup.  This was a pretty nice little dog and when he was about 4 months old he started to show signs of lameness beyond growing pains that dogs sometimes end up with.  He was taken to the vet and diagnosed with the canine equivalent of muscular dystrophy and had to be put down.  Turned out that out of a litter of 12, all 6 of the boys had it and had to be destroyed and the breeder ended up giving him a female which he proptly named Butch.  EEW, that's just a tacky name for a girl. 

When he and his wife split, the poor dog was farmed out to friends who left her in the back yard all the time and she didn't get a chance to develop any people skills (or any other skills for that matter).  All she knew was "If  sit, I get a cookie", and that the dish of food was slid through the sliding door which was immediately slammed shut.  Oh, and chickens are really stupid things that taste really good after they've stuck their heads through a hole in the wall of the chicken coop. 

Anyhoo, we had been living together with my 2 dogs, Harley and Pig (Pig's a whole 'nother story, that'll come 'round later) and every time we went to see Butchie, it broke my heart.  The people she was with weren't dog people and the wife was terrified of her.   So I started to work on him.  It took about a month, but I finally got him to bring her home.  The very first time that she met my cat Hobbes, she stuck that great big beak right in Hobby's face to say hello and ol' Hobbes let 'er have it with both feet.  She had a very healthy respect for cats after that.  And then she met The Pig who immediately grabbed her by the lip and hung on for dear life.  You've never seen anything quite as funny as a Pomeranian hanging off a Rotti's lip as she's back-peddling across the room.  (she weighed 1 pound from the day she was full grown 'til the day she passed)

The first night home he insisted that she wasn't sleeping in the house, even though my 2 did.  Well, she started to howl about 1/2 hour after we went to bed.  He got up, went outside and gave her a whack.  He went back to bed and it started again.  So he went out and hit her again.  Nice welcome to the neighborhood.  The third time she started, I went out.  And invited her in.  She slept on my side of the bed from that time on.

That night she chewed up a ball cap that had been hanging on the corner of the door and fell off when she rolled over and bumped it.  OK, bad dog.  My girls were used to being left in the house when I was gone and mostly they'd just sleep, so when we went to town the next day to do a grocery run we didn't think anything of leaving her loose as well.  Wrong.  When we got home she had chewed the toe off one of my boots.  Damn it.  The next time we left her, she started on the couch.  You know the ones with the loose cushions on the back that look real purdy but are totally uncomfortable.  She had torn a corner off one of the seat cushions and the went to work on one of the back cushions.  Do you know what's inside of them?  Little bitty pieces of foam.  You can't vacuum that shit up, you can't sweep it up, you pretty much have to pick up every little bitty piece BY HAND.  For. The. Next. Six. Months.  When she started on my laundy I finally had enough and told TFHU that he had to do something with her and off she went for 3 weeks to a trainer who had been with the RCMP canine unit.  We weren't allowed to go see her until she was ready to come home which was kind of hard for me as I'd become pretty attached to her even with her problems.

3 long weeks.  For me it seemed an eternity but finally the day came that we could go see her and I'd take a lesson with the trainer (I think he just somehow knew she was going to end up being my dog), and then another week before we could bring her home.  Our lesson went well, with me learning just how to use a pinch collar, how heavy, and at what times (now don't go all animal rights on me, a pinch collar is a tool, and you have to use the right tool for the job at hand and at that time it was the right tool to use).  The next week the lesson went even better than the first and we were able to bring her home with the recommendation that we crate her when we weren't home.  (BTW, that pinch collar never was put to use after she came home, didn't need it)

So we did.  After crating her every time for about a month, I had to run to the store for some little thing and left her loose with the girls.  When I got home she hadn't turned into destructo-dog.  YAY!  I started leaving her for longer periods of time without a hitch and nary a  problem.  She had even started sleeping in her crate during the day with the door open and we ended up taking it right off.

One night we had company stay over and when she got up to use the facilities she went in just fine, but when she was finished, the Bood wouldn't let her out of the bathroom which was right across the hall from the bedroom.  I heard Budda growling and the company saying "Butch, you're scaring me" and had to come to the rescue.  Good dog.  She's definitely not going to let anybody in while we're sleeping !  Another time, TFHU had to go to an early morning meeting and had gone out to start the truck and come back in the house and went in to the bathroom.  Well she heard the truck start and when the bathroom door closed (kinda), she came unglued, charged the door and slapped it back into the drywall and went after him 'til he said "Butch, it's me!".  Wow, talk about sheepish.  She all but turned herself inside-out trying to apologise.  After that one I knew that dog would go to the ends of the earth for me.

There's more Buddha stories, but that's enough for now.  Thanks for reading   D