Grouchy Pants has been really good with our friends New Puppy. Grouchy was a little grouchy (1-2 instances) towards New Puppy but they were really muted for Grouchy and I think it was more communication with New Puppy. Grouchy let Puppy ride in the Xterra (of course with his favorite Aunty M - who happens to be Puppy's mom).
So my two are fine - why failure?
While we went to Durham, the animal shelter suddenly got crowded. So they moved some dogs into "quarrantine" - apparently the selection criteria was: dogs that have issues (unsafe) or dogs that have been
there the longest. Neither in my opinion are good reasons because the level of training/rehabilitation provided while they are at the shelter is woefully inadequate - in fact, I think they get NEGATIVE, REGRESSIVE training because they are not sufficiently exercised and the amount of anxiety/stress caused by loud, close proximity kenneling must be insane. I'm surprised there are no aggressive dogs there that I've come across. I think the ones labelled as aggressive are mislabelled - they seem more frustrated than anything. But back to the failure - among the quarantined dog(s?) was Hank.
Hank was sweet. He loved people. He was excitable, had a bundle of energy, could probably clear a 6-ft fence, but he was sweet and a good dog. I think because he was so wound up - they never gave him a chance. He was never neutered - which by shelter standards meant he couldn't be taken to adoption clinics or on excursions - I asked! And today, I was told "Hank is no longer with us." EPIC FAILURE. From the people that never trained him and gave him up, to the shelter that maybe didn't do enough to work with him or look hard enough for rescues or other shelters to take him, to me - who didn't spend enough time running and playing with him. I saw him maybe 10 times at most. He was finally responding to his name, learning the find it game, not pulling hard all the time... He was so driven, he could have been a great agility, cani-cross, weight pull dog. I think he just didn't get enough exercise because after 1 or 2 loops, he could begin to focus. I know though - his life at the shelter really wasn't much of a life - he had already been there for a year and it didn't seem efforts were being made to get him rehomed. So it's really not fair to make him live out his life confined to a kennel with my once a week visits. But still - I know I failed him and I know a lot of people failed him. What am I supposed to do with that from here?
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