sacredword
New member
In 2021, 2 weeks before our wedding, my wife lost her beloved Corgi of 10 years to an aggressive form of IBD. We tried everything we could to help the pup, but after multiple courses of drugs, dietary changes and several surgeries we just couldn't keep the poor guy healthy. It came down to a choice between surgically giving him a feeding tube and letting him go and we made the hard but necessary decision to let him go with what little dignity he had left. My (then soon to be) wife was completely destroyed. And as joyful as our wedding day was, the sadness of losing our little guy just days before still hung in the air.
Fast forward about 6 months and we brought our current Corgi (C) home. She was so small and sweet, but we could see instantly that she was high-energy and would need a large amount of training. We took her to puppy classes, practiced at home, but overall we couldn't seem to get a handle on her behaviour. She was so willful, never came when called (even when tempted with treats), chased the cats despite our efforts to direct her energy elsewhere, and was afraid of her leash. She literally begins to squint and runs away whenever it comes out. It still happens to this day.
Within the first few months of bringing her home however, our lives changed drastically. We moved to a new home, my wife got pregnant and our other 13 year old dog (Rotty-shephard) was starting to really struggle with his arthritis.
A few months in our new home is when things really started to change. One day we fed the dogs (they used to eat pretty close to each other) and things went haywire. Our Rotty-Shephard (RS) dropped a few kibbles on the ground and C went for them. In an instant she went from grabbing those few kibbles to going fully feral and attacking RS in the face. I got in between them and she bit me up the arm. Which was the first of numerous times that she's bit either me or my wife. This was to be the "new-normal" behaviour for her and we moved to keep them separate when eating, which only heightened C's anxiety during mealtime as she didn't like being separated from the rest of the family.
We brought in our first in-home trainer. She gave us some tips to divert C when RS's food hit the floor. Treating heavily with higher-value treats. We would do this during mealtimes and outside of mealtimes for practice. Drop some kibbles on the floor, divert with higher value treats, a few "leave it"s and "drop it"s, over and over.
After weeks of this and with no improvement in mealtime behaviour, my wife gave birth and our lives were flipped upside down yet again, training stopped to focus on the baby and it was just easier to keep C an RS separate while eating. If this was all it would be we could have probably managed
It wasn't too long after my daughter was born that that C would just randomly attack RS throughout the day. RS could literally be sleeping in his bed and nothing would be happening. C would walk over to him, climb on to him and go feral, snarling and biting. This all would happen in less than 5 seconds. I or my wife would get involved, often getting bit ourselves.
Enter second in-home trainer. We were told to keep C on a leash, or separate from RS and we could try to bring them together by quickly giving C treats the whole time. The trainer gave us some new games to play with C to help with her anxiety, "Ready, find it", "Ready, get it" as well as snuffle mats and other toys to keep her in her "thinking brain". We also started her on a course of trazadone for her anxiety as well as CBD oil.
I work from home so it was pretty easy to keep RS with me during the day down in my office in the basement. We set up a bunch of baby gates so we could manage the movements of our dogs so they wouldn't interact. No matter what tricks, treats, games we played with C, nothing seemed to change her behaviour outside of those times we were fully engaged in her training. It all went out the window the second the treats we gone and the session was over.
The next few months were spent just always keeping the dogs apart. Which also meant my wife, new baby and I were also always apart. I would wake up, take RS downstairs to work, come up for lunch and to let RS outside, head back downstairs. After work I would bring RS up to our bonus room upstairs and that's where I would spend my evening. All the while my wife would be on the main floor with our baby and C. This was an incredibly lonely and frustrating time for me and my wife. We just wanted our family to be together.
After about 4-6 months of this. RS had to be put down. He was getting more and more unstable on the stairs because of his arthritis and you could see in his face he was in a lot of pain. He was on a number of medications and I took him to physio therapy once a week and he was just getting worse and worse. My ability to control him on the stairs with a harness and leash was getting dangerous and he was too large to carry up and down the stairs all day, trying to keep him separate from C. He was almost 15 years old. He lived a good life. I loved that dog. I was crushed. I still kinda am.
That was about 2-3 months ago. The silver lining to him passing on was that maybe we could really focus on C, free up the house so that she didn't have to feel confined to this room or that. Work with her daily to try and make her the dog we knew she could be.
Things went really well for a while. We had no incidents of aggression. We would have great snuggles. She really is such a sweet girl when she's not triggered. I really do love her. C still chases the cats (which we are still, to this day trying to prevent), still hates walks and her leash and every little sound down the street will set her off into a barking frenzy (but not a snarling/snapping one). You really can see all the potential she has for being a really great dog, but everything makes her anxious.
Then came (Canadian) Thanksgiving. We got complacent. We were to drive 3 hours to stay at my parent's house. The morning we were to leave C got a hold of something she shouldn't have and I said "drop it" which she did. As I went to retrieve it she went feral again, grabbing onto my pant leg (no skin this time) and whipped the fabric around for about 10 seconds. Try to soothe her down, which she eventually does. No harm no foul. It was the first time she'd reacted since RS had passed. We chalked it up to an anomaly (mistake #1).
We showed at my parents place and everything went swimmingly for the first few hours. We let C run around without a leash (mistake #2) and she played with my 12 year old nephew all night, chasing each other around (mistake #3).
As the night came to a close it was just me, my wife, child and my parents; as well a C and my parent's Sheltie (S). My mom went to their basement living space and saw that my nephew had given, like, half a HUUUGE bag of treats to the dogs (likely mostly to C). As my mom went to pick it up off the floor, C lost her shit, and started to attack S who was close-by. I got her by the collar calmed her down and took her to bed. Evening over.
The next morning, as we were packing to leave my wife had our baby on the floor, playing. S was nearby and so was C. S started barking at.... something. C lost her shit. Attacked S. As I grabbed C to try and get her off of S she bit me on the finger, a wound that is still healing 3 weeks later. My wife and I drove home 3 hours in near silence and all that was racing through my head was "what if she had gotten a hold of my nephew". We know we got complacent. We made a huge mistake.
My mom called me the next day saying they had to take S to the vet. C had hurt is eye and S was now on some medication to help heal. "What if she had gotten a hold of my nephew"
Now, we'd had a few conversations about re-homing C over this time period. At about the time of the second trainer coming to our house, we'd actually lined up some options. But we always back-petalled on it because of her ability to be sweet 99.9% of the time. But that other 0.1% is enough that, with a not-yet-year-old child in the house it could be really dangerous.
Our baby is starting to crawl right now. C is mostly ok around my daughter (MD). We are in between them whenever there's a possibility for close interaction. But we let C sniff and be near MD when closely monitored. That being said, C is very ill at ease around MD. You can see she's nervous. If MD reaches for C, C jumps away in what looks to be fear to me.
I know C lashes out because of fear and anxiety. When MD is crawling around the house and it's harder for C to get away... what happens then? When MD can run/walk in a year or so and maybe corners C... what happens then? You could make the argument that my nephew was chasing C around for an entire night and there was no incident (until there was). But at this point that's just not a bet I'm willing to make. The "what if" of what could have been on Thanksgiving haunts me. I would never be so complacent as to put my nephew into that possible scenario again. Am I being that complacent with my own daughter?
To people who don't have kids it seems as simple as keeping them separate, watching them all the time. But parents know you can't always be on your guard. We have playpens for MD to play in but as she's getting more mobile she is less happy being kept in there. She wants to explore and she moves FAST. Faster than I would have expected a baby of just over 8 months to move. There really is just no way to be chasing her around all the time when there is also a fully-mobile-hair-triggered time bomb also roaming around the house.
So we called the breeder. At first it was going to be a one-month "reset". To try and get C back on track. But as we were talking with the breeder we realized she is 100% against using medication to help with a dog's behaviour. So when we drop C off we know the breeder will immediately discontinue C's medication despite our protests. My wife won't allow the dog back into the house without the medication though, and we've been told that once a dog has been on, then taken off of trazadone, there's no going back on it. So we decided if C has to go to the breeder, that's where she'll stay. We are out of options.
The breeder says she's had a few of her dogs come back and none have had issues since. Even dogs that have been on trazadone (and similar drugs) that she has gone and taken them off of. She lives on a farm with a bunch of other Corgis and on paper it looks like C is going to have a better life there than what we can provide for her here. I'm worried she'll attack the other Corgi's on the breeders farm, but she doesn't seem concerned. She has made it clear to us that while she doesn't like medication to help adjust a dog's behaviour, she also doesn't believe in euthanasia as a response to it.
We brought C into our home to help fill the hole left by our first Corgi, and knowing that we would also have another hole to fill when RS passed. But now we're left with 3 holes in our hearts. One for every dog we've had to say goodbye to over the last 2 years. I don't know what kind of dog parents we sound like based on this post. But I think both me and my wife have historically been great dog parents. We do not abuse them. They are not just part of the furniture. They are our children too. We play, we snuggle and walk them. I assure you am bawling as I write this. It feels like losing a child.
My wife and I are both so sad (but also angry) that we couldn't be the parents that C needed. But we are also sad (and angry) that C couldn't be the dog that we needed. Without the baby we could've probably made it work, but I've met adults who wear the scars of dog attacks when they were children and I won't put MD through that.
If you've read this far thank you for taking the time to hear my story. I'm sorry there's no silver lining at the end. Only the hope that C has the life she deserves.
Fast forward about 6 months and we brought our current Corgi (C) home. She was so small and sweet, but we could see instantly that she was high-energy and would need a large amount of training. We took her to puppy classes, practiced at home, but overall we couldn't seem to get a handle on her behaviour. She was so willful, never came when called (even when tempted with treats), chased the cats despite our efforts to direct her energy elsewhere, and was afraid of her leash. She literally begins to squint and runs away whenever it comes out. It still happens to this day.
Within the first few months of bringing her home however, our lives changed drastically. We moved to a new home, my wife got pregnant and our other 13 year old dog (Rotty-shephard) was starting to really struggle with his arthritis.
A few months in our new home is when things really started to change. One day we fed the dogs (they used to eat pretty close to each other) and things went haywire. Our Rotty-Shephard (RS) dropped a few kibbles on the ground and C went for them. In an instant she went from grabbing those few kibbles to going fully feral and attacking RS in the face. I got in between them and she bit me up the arm. Which was the first of numerous times that she's bit either me or my wife. This was to be the "new-normal" behaviour for her and we moved to keep them separate when eating, which only heightened C's anxiety during mealtime as she didn't like being separated from the rest of the family.
We brought in our first in-home trainer. She gave us some tips to divert C when RS's food hit the floor. Treating heavily with higher-value treats. We would do this during mealtimes and outside of mealtimes for practice. Drop some kibbles on the floor, divert with higher value treats, a few "leave it"s and "drop it"s, over and over.
After weeks of this and with no improvement in mealtime behaviour, my wife gave birth and our lives were flipped upside down yet again, training stopped to focus on the baby and it was just easier to keep C an RS separate while eating. If this was all it would be we could have probably managed
It wasn't too long after my daughter was born that that C would just randomly attack RS throughout the day. RS could literally be sleeping in his bed and nothing would be happening. C would walk over to him, climb on to him and go feral, snarling and biting. This all would happen in less than 5 seconds. I or my wife would get involved, often getting bit ourselves.
Enter second in-home trainer. We were told to keep C on a leash, or separate from RS and we could try to bring them together by quickly giving C treats the whole time. The trainer gave us some new games to play with C to help with her anxiety, "Ready, find it", "Ready, get it" as well as snuffle mats and other toys to keep her in her "thinking brain". We also started her on a course of trazadone for her anxiety as well as CBD oil.
I work from home so it was pretty easy to keep RS with me during the day down in my office in the basement. We set up a bunch of baby gates so we could manage the movements of our dogs so they wouldn't interact. No matter what tricks, treats, games we played with C, nothing seemed to change her behaviour outside of those times we were fully engaged in her training. It all went out the window the second the treats we gone and the session was over.
The next few months were spent just always keeping the dogs apart. Which also meant my wife, new baby and I were also always apart. I would wake up, take RS downstairs to work, come up for lunch and to let RS outside, head back downstairs. After work I would bring RS up to our bonus room upstairs and that's where I would spend my evening. All the while my wife would be on the main floor with our baby and C. This was an incredibly lonely and frustrating time for me and my wife. We just wanted our family to be together.
After about 4-6 months of this. RS had to be put down. He was getting more and more unstable on the stairs because of his arthritis and you could see in his face he was in a lot of pain. He was on a number of medications and I took him to physio therapy once a week and he was just getting worse and worse. My ability to control him on the stairs with a harness and leash was getting dangerous and he was too large to carry up and down the stairs all day, trying to keep him separate from C. He was almost 15 years old. He lived a good life. I loved that dog. I was crushed. I still kinda am.
That was about 2-3 months ago. The silver lining to him passing on was that maybe we could really focus on C, free up the house so that she didn't have to feel confined to this room or that. Work with her daily to try and make her the dog we knew she could be.
Things went really well for a while. We had no incidents of aggression. We would have great snuggles. She really is such a sweet girl when she's not triggered. I really do love her. C still chases the cats (which we are still, to this day trying to prevent), still hates walks and her leash and every little sound down the street will set her off into a barking frenzy (but not a snarling/snapping one). You really can see all the potential she has for being a really great dog, but everything makes her anxious.
Then came (Canadian) Thanksgiving. We got complacent. We were to drive 3 hours to stay at my parent's house. The morning we were to leave C got a hold of something she shouldn't have and I said "drop it" which she did. As I went to retrieve it she went feral again, grabbing onto my pant leg (no skin this time) and whipped the fabric around for about 10 seconds. Try to soothe her down, which she eventually does. No harm no foul. It was the first time she'd reacted since RS had passed. We chalked it up to an anomaly (mistake #1).
We showed at my parents place and everything went swimmingly for the first few hours. We let C run around without a leash (mistake #2) and she played with my 12 year old nephew all night, chasing each other around (mistake #3).
As the night came to a close it was just me, my wife, child and my parents; as well a C and my parent's Sheltie (S). My mom went to their basement living space and saw that my nephew had given, like, half a HUUUGE bag of treats to the dogs (likely mostly to C). As my mom went to pick it up off the floor, C lost her shit, and started to attack S who was close-by. I got her by the collar calmed her down and took her to bed. Evening over.
The next morning, as we were packing to leave my wife had our baby on the floor, playing. S was nearby and so was C. S started barking at.... something. C lost her shit. Attacked S. As I grabbed C to try and get her off of S she bit me on the finger, a wound that is still healing 3 weeks later. My wife and I drove home 3 hours in near silence and all that was racing through my head was "what if she had gotten a hold of my nephew". We know we got complacent. We made a huge mistake.
My mom called me the next day saying they had to take S to the vet. C had hurt is eye and S was now on some medication to help heal. "What if she had gotten a hold of my nephew"
Now, we'd had a few conversations about re-homing C over this time period. At about the time of the second trainer coming to our house, we'd actually lined up some options. But we always back-petalled on it because of her ability to be sweet 99.9% of the time. But that other 0.1% is enough that, with a not-yet-year-old child in the house it could be really dangerous.
Our baby is starting to crawl right now. C is mostly ok around my daughter (MD). We are in between them whenever there's a possibility for close interaction. But we let C sniff and be near MD when closely monitored. That being said, C is very ill at ease around MD. You can see she's nervous. If MD reaches for C, C jumps away in what looks to be fear to me.
I know C lashes out because of fear and anxiety. When MD is crawling around the house and it's harder for C to get away... what happens then? When MD can run/walk in a year or so and maybe corners C... what happens then? You could make the argument that my nephew was chasing C around for an entire night and there was no incident (until there was). But at this point that's just not a bet I'm willing to make. The "what if" of what could have been on Thanksgiving haunts me. I would never be so complacent as to put my nephew into that possible scenario again. Am I being that complacent with my own daughter?
To people who don't have kids it seems as simple as keeping them separate, watching them all the time. But parents know you can't always be on your guard. We have playpens for MD to play in but as she's getting more mobile she is less happy being kept in there. She wants to explore and she moves FAST. Faster than I would have expected a baby of just over 8 months to move. There really is just no way to be chasing her around all the time when there is also a fully-mobile-hair-triggered time bomb also roaming around the house.
So we called the breeder. At first it was going to be a one-month "reset". To try and get C back on track. But as we were talking with the breeder we realized she is 100% against using medication to help with a dog's behaviour. So when we drop C off we know the breeder will immediately discontinue C's medication despite our protests. My wife won't allow the dog back into the house without the medication though, and we've been told that once a dog has been on, then taken off of trazadone, there's no going back on it. So we decided if C has to go to the breeder, that's where she'll stay. We are out of options.
The breeder says she's had a few of her dogs come back and none have had issues since. Even dogs that have been on trazadone (and similar drugs) that she has gone and taken them off of. She lives on a farm with a bunch of other Corgis and on paper it looks like C is going to have a better life there than what we can provide for her here. I'm worried she'll attack the other Corgi's on the breeders farm, but she doesn't seem concerned. She has made it clear to us that while she doesn't like medication to help adjust a dog's behaviour, she also doesn't believe in euthanasia as a response to it.
We brought C into our home to help fill the hole left by our first Corgi, and knowing that we would also have another hole to fill when RS passed. But now we're left with 3 holes in our hearts. One for every dog we've had to say goodbye to over the last 2 years. I don't know what kind of dog parents we sound like based on this post. But I think both me and my wife have historically been great dog parents. We do not abuse them. They are not just part of the furniture. They are our children too. We play, we snuggle and walk them. I assure you am bawling as I write this. It feels like losing a child.
My wife and I are both so sad (but also angry) that we couldn't be the parents that C needed. But we are also sad (and angry) that C couldn't be the dog that we needed. Without the baby we could've probably made it work, but I've met adults who wear the scars of dog attacks when they were children and I won't put MD through that.
If you've read this far thank you for taking the time to hear my story. I'm sorry there's no silver lining at the end. Only the hope that C has the life she deserves.