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Last week I had Elle for one day. She never saw the cat before my dogs were home from daycare.
That evening, when she did see the cat, she completely froze up. It was my fault for not acting more quickly to remove Mali from the situation. Mali was in my lap, so Elle redirected her tension to Elka in a full-blown attack that ended with Mali thrown over the bannister (yes, she landed safely on her feet, thank goodness, it was a 20 foot drop and totally unintentional, I meant to put her down on the other side of the bannister on the .... thing there that Mali loves to hang out on.)
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this behavior. The first time was with Alistare. With Alistare I barely believed what I saw. He was *great* with Mali one on one. He was great with Elka one on one. All three together in the same space was a disaster for Elka, and a time-bomb for Mali. I hate to say this, but I’m thankful Elka took the beating because Mali wouldn’t have survived it.
With Elle, I didn’t get to see if she was fine with the cat one on one. However, her in the same room as Elka and Mali was a disaster and the same thing again - I’m happy she beat up Elka because Mali would have been killed.
Of course, Elle quickly escalated to attacking Elka for no reason whatsoever that I could determine, even carefully observing both of their body language and interaction. I saw no triggers - I’m sure there was one I missed, but I sure didn’t see it.
Elka never defended herself and never fought back. She just stood there and took it, she didn’t even try to get away. This was heartbreaking to see. I was failing my precious girl.
Now, back when I started all of this, I thought for sure that if the dog was cat safe - then s/he was just plain old cat safe. But apparently, it is not entirely unusual (in my experience) to have a dog that is fine with either other dogs, or with cats, but not with both in the same space. I’m still trying to figure this one out.
What this has told me is that I am done fostering and there will not be a third dog so long as Mali lives. I’d said that before but now I’m convinced. The only exception would be if I brought in a puppy and raised it here, and there’s no way in hell that’s happening any time soon.
To get Elle out of the house, I had to quit my rescue. They had no foster homes so weren’t going to be able to remove her until Monday, meanwhile I was stuck with this dog that was attacking Elka and forcing me to banish Mali to the bathroom. The whole reason I foster for a rescue group is that they usually have one’s back - if a dog is dangerous in a home, they get them out. This time was a complete, 100% failure until I had a tantrum. I spoke with another lady that used to rescue, and she said that with another group, she actually had to take the dog back to their facility and dump it since they wouldn’t remove the dog from her home (was attacking her senior girl). My rescue doesn’t have a facility, so I couldn’t pull this tactic off.
In the end, the rescue got the dog out of my house - but only because I threw a tantrum and told them I was done. Done fostering, done being on the foster team and helping out the rescue in general, just done. It felt awful doing it that way, but what choice did they leave me?
In any case, I won’t put my family through that again. So long as I have a cat, I simply will not have a third dog in this house (there is one notable exception, and that’s Chris’ senior golden, and I’d have him here any day, but he protects cats from what Chris tells me.)
So, last week I got my optimism kicked out of me - first by a completely sweet dog on her own, but a fairly viscous dog around other animals (cats and bitches, she was fine with Milton). Then by a rescue with whom I had placed my faith and helped because I thought they would be there if things were bad for my family.
Meanwhile, Oregon DHS hasn’t responded to me about fostering - and you can bet the lack of communication has soured my determination to even consider fostering children.
My faith in humanity, which was already stressed, is dwindling ever further….
-Lisa, on November 18, 2010 at 8:54 am