shortstuff
New member
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- Oct 21, 2014
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Shasta has always been the model citizen dog. She's calm, well behaved, listens well... but for some reason, ever since we got Bisou, Shasta has been acting up a lot. We have had Bisou for nine months now and I've realized that things just aren't getting better with Shasta... it's getting worse. They are best friends and play all the time, but Shasta seems to take advantage of there being another dog to pay attention to and uses that distraction as an excuse to be naughty.
To set the scene a little, our yard is mostly flat but with a pretty steep slope on the left with the neighbor's fence about 8 feet down the slope. We put up a little 2' high picket fence to keep the dogs away from this area where we have a turtle enclosure. We also have the same picket fence around our flower beds to keep them from crunching the plants. About a month ago, Shasta jumped over the picket fence, ran down the hill, and broke through the wooden fence to go after the neighbor's new cat! She's always had a high prey drive but she's never been destructive in order to get to a cat. This time she was, and she terrified our poor neighbor.
Ever since this incident, Shasta keeps getting caught on the other side of the picket fence sniffing around looking for the cat. Her acting up has even brought her to getting into the flower garden sniffing around for something or other. She never used to do this before, and I don't understand why she's acting up like this.
We know the fence isn't high enough to physically keep the dogs out but they have been trained not to. Even little stubborn Bisou listens to this rule, and we've only caught her over there twice since getting her, both times a result of following Shasta's lead. We used to love letting the girls out to lay in the sun every morning, but now Shasta disobeys and ends up on the wrong side of the fences nearly every time they're left alone. Just today, I let the girls outside then went back inside to grab a toy. I wasn't inside for two minutes when I found Shasta trying to dig her way to the kitty. It's driving me insane! Correction does absolutely nothing to deter her from going over there. And unfortunately, since we're renting we can't install a real fence to keep them out. In order to make sure the neighbor's cat lives to see another day, we now have to deprive Bisou of her sun time because she's not interested in being out there if her sissy isn't with her... it makes me so sad and angry at the same time!
Ever since we got Bisou, Shasta has gotten more and more naughty and acts out more and more often. The funny thing is, when we were training Bisou, Shasta was perfect! It was so nice to know there was one dog I didn't have to worry about. Once Bisou was trained and had the same freedoms as Shasta, that's when things changed. Now, I feel like I can leave Bisou alone to do her thing and it's Shasta I have to watch like a puppy. I feel so bad scolding Shasta all the time, because this is SO not her personality at all. It's so bizarre having to re-train a 7 year old dog! How would you guys handle this?
To set the scene a little, our yard is mostly flat but with a pretty steep slope on the left with the neighbor's fence about 8 feet down the slope. We put up a little 2' high picket fence to keep the dogs away from this area where we have a turtle enclosure. We also have the same picket fence around our flower beds to keep them from crunching the plants. About a month ago, Shasta jumped over the picket fence, ran down the hill, and broke through the wooden fence to go after the neighbor's new cat! She's always had a high prey drive but she's never been destructive in order to get to a cat. This time she was, and she terrified our poor neighbor.
Ever since this incident, Shasta keeps getting caught on the other side of the picket fence sniffing around looking for the cat. Her acting up has even brought her to getting into the flower garden sniffing around for something or other. She never used to do this before, and I don't understand why she's acting up like this.We know the fence isn't high enough to physically keep the dogs out but they have been trained not to. Even little stubborn Bisou listens to this rule, and we've only caught her over there twice since getting her, both times a result of following Shasta's lead. We used to love letting the girls out to lay in the sun every morning, but now Shasta disobeys and ends up on the wrong side of the fences nearly every time they're left alone. Just today, I let the girls outside then went back inside to grab a toy. I wasn't inside for two minutes when I found Shasta trying to dig her way to the kitty. It's driving me insane! Correction does absolutely nothing to deter her from going over there. And unfortunately, since we're renting we can't install a real fence to keep them out. In order to make sure the neighbor's cat lives to see another day, we now have to deprive Bisou of her sun time because she's not interested in being out there if her sissy isn't with her... it makes me so sad and angry at the same time!
Ever since we got Bisou, Shasta has gotten more and more naughty and acts out more and more often. The funny thing is, when we were training Bisou, Shasta was perfect! It was so nice to know there was one dog I didn't have to worry about. Once Bisou was trained and had the same freedoms as Shasta, that's when things changed. Now, I feel like I can leave Bisou alone to do her thing and it's Shasta I have to watch like a puppy. I feel so bad scolding Shasta all the time, because this is SO not her personality at all. It's so bizarre having to re-train a 7 year old dog! How would you guys handle this?
