by HappyChick » July 25th, 2010, 6:33 pm
Grace - I'm glad you asked. She is still on shut down. We tried to push it and do a bit of intro stuff with them, it has not gone well. She tried right away to dominate Guido and Reno, but neither of them was having it so they had to be separated. She and Leni do not like each other.
Things are changing though. When Dozia was in her kennel when she first got here, she and Leni would challenge each other. Now they look and sniff at each other without a challenge. Reno and Guido can sniff her in the kennel and she sniffs back. Last night Dozia was leashed to me and I let Guido in the room. All went okay until I got Guido's food and called him to eat. Dozia went after him. So I would now say she is a resource guarder. I suppose I should have known by how she treats her piggy, but I don't know a lot about animal behavior. She does not like Jade the cat at all. Now I need to also say that Vinny and Jade did not like each other at first. They grew to love each other.
My unprofessional take on Dozia is that with her former people she was:
1. Hit or beat when they housetrained her.
2. An only dog.
3. Not socialized whatsoever with other animals.
Because of these things that I think happened to her, I think she can get used to other dogs and possibly get along with other dogs, but it will take time. I've unoffically fostered adult dogs before, but never had any issues like with Dozia. If any experts reading this post have ideas for how I should handle the intros next time we try, please tell me!!
ON the bright side, she loves, loves, loves people including kids!! She is very eager to please.