Well, we finally did it. Our homestead now has two fewer dogs.
After asking around for quite a while trying to find someone who might give Champ or Mammoo a new home, we finally decided that the animal shelter would be our best option. We hauled them off this afternoon to the holding facility in our county for dogs and cats. They will be taken to a shelter up the river a few counties away on Friday. Perhaps they will be able to find a new home for the dogs.
They were both good dogs in their own ways, but they each had some problems that we were no longer willing to live with. The aggrevations had finally become more than we could bare, and none of us were enjoying them as pets anymore, either.
Champ, the chocolate lab, eats more than all of our other dogs and he never has been a guardian dog. His insistance to "play" with anyone who went outside 100% of the time drove us crazy! He would never give us break, always dropping a ball or stick in front of our feet for us to trip over. He also had serious odor problems. How he could always smell so badly was a mystery. And also he was a prime suspect in both a duck and a goat kid murder. He used to go crazy when the ducks were splashing in the pond and we actually caught him with a wing of one of the Rouens in his mouth! If he killed the kid, I think he was just playing with it and killed it by accident. The final mark against him was that he was showing some aggressive signs toward some people. He has never bared his teeth and growled toward us, but several times he has toward our visitors with no reason; even after we had told him they were ok. I have been afraid several times that he was going to attack. He is a purebred chocolate lab, so maybe someone will take him.
Mamoo was one of our Great Pyrenees. She was a good guardian dog when she was not obsessed with the cars in front of our house. But most of the time, she was not concerned with anything going on in our hollow. She just wanted to chase nearly every car that passed by our home and she was constantly in the road! It has gotten so bad that we think some people are purposely speeding up or honking their horns before they get to our driveway to lure her out, just trying to hit her! We don’t want to cause a wreck, but we don’t like our other animals being in danger from angry drivers either.
We have tried everything we know to break her of this, even using a shock collar for several weeks until she had burn sores on her neck! We tried tying her up each evening, but she would bark all night and chase the cars as soon as she got off. She used to mainly have this problem at night, but for the past many months it hasn’t mattered what time of the day it was. If she wasn’t sleeping, she was likely in the road jumping up at and chasing the cars. It is sad that she had made herself such a nuisance. She is such a beautiful dog that maybe someone will take her.
I think the family will be able to enjoy our other two dogs a bit more, now. We still have our other Pyr, Chief, and also Luna, which was the surviving puppy of Mammoo. Mammoo taught Luna to chase cars, also, but she isn’t as bad. I don’t know if she will chase any cars at all if Mammoo is not around. They are both good dogs and they do pay attention to our hollow. They earn their keep by patrolling the hills at night and keeping the deer out of our gardens, as well as guarding our house.
We do love dogs, but sometimes too many dogs can be a problem. When they start causing trouble and getting on everyone’s nerves, action must be taken for the good of all. I just hate making those tough decisions!
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