Adopting a Beagle?

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by mark

Well that was a bust.

Plan was we would take the dog on the weekend but ends up the woman is going to keep the dog. Though my wife was ensured repeatedly before the dog came over and while it was here, she was okay giving it away, when she returned home with it, guess the woman's mother had other thoughts.

Little miffed about explaining this to my 9 year old as went through this a couple of years back with another dog (wife's Aunt family had all agreed they had no time for their dog and then came back for it a few days later). This was why my wife wanted it to be so clear before the Beagle was brought over.

No more private deals, going to the SPCA tomorrow.

Sorry to hear it didn't work out. If nothing at the SPCA grabs your attention this rescue organization SCARS http://www.scarscare.org/ has a lot of nice dogs to choose from. Click on adoptions then scroll down to adoptable animals or use this link http://www.scarscare.org/AnimalsLanding.aspx

[StirCrazy]

I am not sure SPCA or rescue is the way to go anymore after my experiences as of late. I think you have to be open to getting a dog that has baggage, we ended up getting a beautiful dog from the SPCA but now we are faced with the decision of returning her. so basically I have spent 400ish on supplies/toys/crate, ect the adoption fees and about 150.00 in vet/shots ect. and may have to throw it all away. the problem is she has an extreme dog aggression and in my neighborhood ever second house has a couple dogs and the ones in between have 1, so taking her for a walk is like an episode of ceaser mellan. we have also spent almost 300 on private lessons with a trainer who specializes in aggression but nothing she has tried has worked at all. now after talking to the SPCA they asked me to try one of there volunteer trainers at no cost to me be for we make the final decision. they do agree that keeping here is not a good option due to the liability as if some ones dog come running up to us on a walk she will probably try kill it. the other problem is I can't let her in the back yard with out being with her and having her on a leash which isn't the best environment for her either. so if the new trainer doesn't work, I think we will return her and eat the money we have spent already then start looking for a reputable breeder and get a puppy. no more rescue or SPCA for me, as ten rescue dogs we looked at had some sort of issue also.

[EmilyB]

There are so many wonderful dogs in rescues all over, it is unfortunate you feel that way.

But at least going to a reputable breeder will eliminate encouragement of backyard breeders that simply add to the number of dogs that end up in rescue.

Unfortunately, not all rescues or shelters are "reputable" either, and do not put forth the effort to carefully match the animal with its new family.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I am not sure SPCA or rescue is the way to go anymore after my experiences as of late.

Steve, that's a rather broad statement, no? While it's true that rescue dogs can sometimes have baggage that we prefer they didn't have (Nyx is a great example ), it's not always the case, and with proper training and management, they can turn out great (again, Nyx is a great example). It all depends on how they got there. Also, rescues are often really anally retentive in making sure their dogs are matched properly to new owners. If they aren't asking you 100 questions, they might not care enough..
On the flip side, I know a few dogs with issues that were raised from puppies. Puppies aren't guaranteed to be great dogs just because they're puppies.

[StirCrazy]

True, but rescues in BC that are good are hard to find, there have been 8 of them in court over the last 10 years and there are a lot more that are run rather shady (we have a friend up here that is big involved in them)

yes it was a little to broad, I should say if you are looking for specific things it is hard to find, if you are open to certian things it may be more simple. I need a dog that likes other dogs, my cat, good with the kids, and is house broken. am I looking for to much? or do thoes types of dogs usaly not end up in rescues or at the SPCA?

As for NIX, the only baggage she has is that her tail is realy a wrecking ball

Steve

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by EmilyB

There are so many wonderful dogs in rescues all over, it is unfortunate you feel that way.

But at least going to a reputable breeder will eliminate encouragement of backyard breeders that simply add to the number of dogs that end up in rescue.

Unfortunately, not all rescues or shelters are "reputable" either, and do not put forth the effort to carefully match the animal with its new family.

we went to about 6 different rescues to look at dogs, about 4 of them said one thing and after we drove for anywhere from 1 to 3 hours the dog ended up being totaly unsuitable and the foster people couldn't believe what the rescue people told us about the dog, so I was a little jaded there.

we figured with all the formes and info the SPCA made us fill out, if they looked at them they would have knowen I was looking for a dog that I could take hiking, camping, to the dogpark, but all they cared about is the photo of my yard and let us have a dog that I can only walk at 6am, or at supper time, when there are no other dogs around as to many damn people let there dogs run off leash here, and I am worried about the ones that come running up as if she gets ahold of them I have no doubt at this point she will try kill them. soooooo........ not realy a match to all the questions they asked me at all.

They told us it was a golden retriever/lab cross, but I have discovered it is a Golden/Chow cross. the Chow is the dominant personality and it was never socilized as a pup, and to make it worse the girl who is trying to get rid of her agression has a feeling she was being groomed to be a fighting dog. so I have a highly inteligent, indemendant stubbren dog who wants to kill any other dog it sees

Even the trainer I have been working with cannot believe the SPCA would have given her to a family with young kids.

Steve

[mark]

So did the SPCA thing and got the son a 3year old Chocolate Lab.

Story with her was owners moved to a no pet apartment building. Very well behaved with about the only negative is she seems attached to me rather than the kid but we'll work on that.



I would like to thank all for the comments above.

[fishoholic]

Mark- congrats on the new dog, I hope everything works out for you

Steve- I'm sorry to hear that, I know how you feel though. My dog Bailey was (and still could be if I'm not tuned into her behaviour) very aggressive with other dogs. She's good with my other two dogs but walks were a nightmare. I'll be honest in the fact that I will never feel comfortable taking her to off leash parks due to her aggressive tendencies, she did attack another dog at an off leash park 3 years ago luckily we were able to pull her off of the other dog before she did any damage. However for a moment when it was happening I thought Bailey was going to kill the other dog and thought OMG what have I gotten myself into.

After that I stopped going to off leash parks. I would however take Bailey and my other dog Oreo for walks together. Unfortunately Bailey's aggressiveness towards other dogs started to rub off on Oreo, so I learned to do my best to avoid other dogs while on a walk. Which in a neighborhood like mine were every other house has dogs is near impossible. I got a wake up call when I was walking them and I turned the corner and suddenly there was a husky dog right in front of us, well both of my dogs went crazy and started attacking the other dog, my dogs actually knocked me over and dragged me in order to get to the other dog I was pretty horrified (and a bit banged up) but really lucky that they didn't hurt the husky and that the husky's owner was able to get her dog away from mine and that she was more worried about me being ok (since my dogs had dragged me a fair way before I regained control) then upset by what happened.

I made a promise to myself that day that I would get control of Bailey and she would not control me. I read a lot of books and watched a lot of Cesar Millan and I started taking Bailey on separate walks. I learned how to get her to heal (walk beside me), I learned to control my fear of her attacking again and I learned to watch for all her signs so I could correct her before any aggression started. It took me a whole year to do all this, but it was worth all the hard work and in the past year I have not had any problems walking her.

Bailey literally went from going completely psycho when ever another dog was within sight to ignoring any other dog we run into on our walks. Yes it was a lot of hard work and yes it was worth it and if Bailey could change I'm sure your dog could to, so don't give up hope yet. The key for me with Bailey was for me to stay clam (not an easy task, but with time I was able to) whenever another dog came into view and to correct her immediately at the first sign of her showing any interest in another dog, to the point were now she pretty much ignores other dogs on our walk. I always keep a close eye on her and there are times when I still need to correct her but in the past year she hasn't even barked at any other dogs we walk by, even if they are barking at her.

[Leah]

Mark the dog looks like a sweetie, I hope for your son's sake it works out great. She just looks like a boy's dog.
Laurie that is great that you have put the time and effort in, it usually pays off. The not panicking part is so hard to do.
All dogs have the potential to become aggressive at any age. Regardless of if you have had it since a puppy. So no Guarantee's.

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by Leah

Mark the dog looks like a sweetie, I hope for your son's sake it works out great. She just looks like a boy's dog.
Laurie that is great that you have put the time and effort in, it usually pays off. The not panicking part is so hard to do.
All dogs have the potential to become aggressive at any age. Regardless of if you have had it since a puppy. So no Guarantee's.

It took me about 3 months of walks before I managed to get my heart to stop racing every time I saw another dog on our walks. It was totally worth the effort though. I used to turn around and walk the other way whenever I saw another dog, now I move over to one side of the path tell Bailey to ignore (and she pretty much does) we let the other dog pass by then we continue with our walk.