Details

Rough beginning but happy ending
Post Date: 3/17/2017 11:23:52 AM

We chose to interview Kobalt because he was, we were told, good with other dogs, and very patient when his people left. He was a rescue from Sacramento, about five years old, who'd been found on the street. No history. But he was very pleasant when we met him, and we made the decision to adopt him. The first week, he did not like it when we left, even when we tried to crate him in another room from where we were. But he did seem to get along with other dogs. As the week went on, his social anxiety lessened, but so did his tolerance for other dogs. He barked at them, lunged at them, and got into a couple scraps when we were surprised coming around corners, not expecting him to be aggressive. We worked with a trainer to curtail that behavior, with minimal success both in the positive reinforcement method and with the prong collar. It had been seven years since we had a dog, and so our adjustment was almost as rough as Kobalt's. In those first couple months, there were several incidents that made us question whether he was the right dog. He was aggressive toward a house guest; he was rough with some of the neighbor kids when we tried to include them in playing ball with him. We even reached out to the GSRNC to ask about these behavioral issues and they recommended another trainer to us, who unfortunately did not work out but at least gave us some hope to persevere. We knew he was a smart dog and it was a real pleasure to see him learn some things, so we had hope for him. The following month, we were gone on three trips of a few days each, and because we couldn't be sure Kobalt would get along with other dogs, our choice of boarding was very limited. He came back from one place having started to chew at a spot on his flank, which stopped as soon as we got him home. He was well-behaved in another, but when we took him back there his separation anxiety kicked in again and the boarder couldn't leave him alone. We had gotten to the point of desperation--if we couldn't even board him somewhere, we couldn't keep him. We made the difficult decision after picking him up from that last trip that we should try to rehome him. But that next month, he settled down quite a bit. He'd had a lot of disruption in his life, and we feel that after three months, coming back to us after being boarded multiple times, he finally came to trust that this was his new home. He was more affectionate with us than he had been, and we understood better how to manage him on walks. We were good at dog avoidance from our previous dog, so we just had to remember how to do it (and Kobalt doesn't seem aggressive toward other dogs as much as our previous dog was; he's more just excited and sometimes nervous). We found that every time we started to write a letter about our decision to rehome him, we felt bad about it. So we made a few small changes. When people come over, we meet them outside the house with Kobalt and go in, so he knows they belong. We grew more confident when walking him, and continued to reward him when he stayed quiet upon seeing another dog. And we found a kennel with experience in caring for shepherds who absolutely love him. Slowly we realized that we could keep him. Kobalt has rewarded our patience many times over. After those first rough months, he's become part of the family. He's got a sweet personality (the vet wrote "super sweet" on his personality evaluation) and hasn't misbehaved around house guests again (except to steal food from plates, a habit we can discourage but not completely eliminate). He still reacts to other dogs, but rarely barks now unless surprised by one. We can take him out to a shared park and throw a ball for him on a long lead, which he loves more than just about anything, and we love watching his enjoyment. He follows us around the house and wants to be in the same room with us (one of his endearing habits is that when he comes back from a walk, he races around the house looking to see where everyone is), but is also totally fine having the place to himself for a couple hours. And while he doesn't really love the kennel, he's stayed there multiple times and come back healthy and happy every time. When we adopted, one of the guidelines was to give the dog a few months to settle in and see his true personality. And the GSRNC was very helpful, advocating patience and getting us some information about Kobalt's previous behaviors. I just wanted to say how glad we are that we had that little extra reserve of patience to wait out Kobalt's adjustment period and get a terrific dog who just needed a little bit of stability in his life.

Photos