Alistare was was perfect.
Those were my requirements, along with being mellow and young. Excellent with Elka and Mali were the must-haves, the other two were wants.
See those two points above? Well, he met those.
Then Mali came out to survey the situation.
Alistare attacked Elka.
Not once, but twice. It was the second time where I figured out the trigger for the attacks on Elka. Mali was the trigger.
Alistare was over-excited, he wanted to check out Mali and couldn’t, so he redirected that frustration on Elka. I do not believe this was outright aggression but was instead redirection. But it is still an attack, and one that came without warning in this case.
I did some serious soul-searching. I could lay out the plan for handling this and re-training/managing it. I knew, intellectually, how to approach it.
In the mean-time, all 3 would have to be kept separate, I’d have to worry all the time. It would be an incredible amount of stress and uncertainty. If a 6 month old puppy had this issue, what would adolescence and adult-hood give us?
On the other hand, Alistare was 6 months old, incredibly sweet, absolutely one of the smarter dogs I’ve met, and gorgeous.
I contacted Family Dogs New Life about it and they allowed me to bring him back to them. I spent most of yesterdays in a complete break-down until I finally went to sleep. Chris has been incredibly supportive.
At this point I’m going back to considering a pure-bred. A golden retriever or going on the waiting list for a Tamaskan, both which have a high success rate with cats and other small animals. Or I may just go back on the foster list for Golden Bond Rescue.
I’m heartbroken over this; I feel like I failed Alistare. I also feel like I failed Elka allowing her to get attacked twice like that. Thank goodness he never attacked Mali - she would have been killed, and that was the ultimate reason I brought him back.
There is always some unpredictability when you bring home a second dog, even a purebred. But if I get an 8 week old from a breeder with cats, the puppy raised in home around those cats, then the chances of this working out skyrocket.
But still, I failed in so many ways here, and yes, bringing him back I include as a failure, though it was absolutely the right thing to protect Mali and Elka.
I miss him very much, but he’ll have a fantastic, more appropriate home, and quickly. He’s that close to irresistible.
-Lisa, 2 months, 17 hours, 48 minutes ago .:;. Comment (0)