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What do you do when you feel your GSD just isn't a fit?

4K views 27 replies 17 participants last post by  pets4life 
#1 ·
In December, my boyfriend and I adopted Violet for free. She more of just ended up in our care, but we welcomed her in and do love her very dearly. We also have a border collie mix, Ambrosia, and the two originally seemed interested in being friends.

They bicker a lot, and Ambrosia's the one who generally starts it, but Violet is having a harder and harder time letting go and has full capability of "stopping" it in a very dangerous way. We have attempted to work with them, but it's hard to really separate them to give them time to cool down and work one on one with them. Violet has always seemed kind of distant, an effect of her past we assumed. Not particularly interested in toys, not eating very much. She is still quite thin despite us trying to feed her more and alone, deworming, exercising, etc. She really likes to try to play with Ambrosia, but Ambrosia is often giving her the cold shoulder most of the time.

She definitely wants to play with other dogs, which Ambrosia will do with any other dog. She is not, in our experience, dog aggressive except with Violet - and it's not that it's particularly aggression so much as a sibling rivalry.

Beyond the Violet vs. Ambrosia aspect, while she's very smart, we're having some issues with pulling on the lead. We are doing our best to train her out of this, but we both have only owned dogs starting at puppyhood and totally underestimated the difficulty of training a large dog with a another dog. It really is a pressing matter, as our front door is twenty feet from a major highway. Ambrosia is 100% on recall and training in this aspect, and can even be trusted (as much as one can trust a dog) off leash.

Overall, I feel like she maybe isn't a good fit for our family and I feel as if she isn't happy being with us. At the same time that I don't want to rehome her as she is a super sweet dog who we do really love, but if she's not happy maybe the best thing is to let her go. I'm not sure how to rehome a dog in a way that I would trust (I do NOT want her to return to her previous owners or do a sketchy craigslist thing.) and I'm hoping that all of you will have some wonderful insight on either that or how I might be able to remedy this situation without rehoming her.
 
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#4 ·
Violet is a year and four months or so, Ambrosia will be one year next month.

Nothing particularly happened between them, Ambrosia just seems to get more fiesty the more around Violet she is. She plays happily with everything from shih tzus to pitbulls that we've introduced her to, but it seems the more time that goes by the more pissy she gets.

They are, however, both not currently spayed. This will be remedied before a final decision is made one way or another. We had an emergency kind of take up our saved up funds soon after receiving Violet and the vet said to wait one year to spay Ambrosia because of her size as a runt. It wasn't enough to set us behind financially in day-to-day life but kind of put the spaying on the back burner.
 
#5 ·
I rehomed a female gsd that as you say, just wasn't a good fit for a lot of reasons. I think she let me pet her a total of 3 times and that was only when she was stuck in the laundry room with me and had no choice. She was fantastic at obedience, a beautiful dog but we had absolutely no connection. She had a very high drive and needed a job- she would have made a great police dog or drug dog. I ended up finding a young couple who advertised online that they were looking for a female companion the same age as their male gsd. When they came to look at her, she was a completely different dog! She loved the guy, adored their dog and I've never seen her so happy. She couldn't wait to jump in the truck with them. That night they sent me a picture of her using their dog's head as a pillow. The guy's parents have a ranch so she gets to go herding, they run a lot, live on a lake so she can swim. She has a much better life than she would have had with me. I took a lot of flack for finding her another home (my mother didn't speak to me for weeks) but I know I did the best thing for her.
 
#6 ·
Thank you, Stosh, for that story. It makes me feel better about the situation. Can I ask why your mother was so affected? I ask because my grandma is very turned off by the idea by the idea of someone rehoming their dog, saying the responsibility is a lifetime one. But she also has always started from puppies except for a few dogs I've heard about, which ended up being rehomed... So I'm not sure her thought process.
 
#7 · (Edited)
My mom gave me the whole "it's like giving away your child" guilt trip. But no, I did not give birth to the dog and I agree with your grandmother that the responsibility is a lifetime one, which is why I wanted the best possible home for her. And I had a responsibility to the other dog I had that he would not be injured by her. I bought her from a breeder and they were willing to take her back but when that couple came to meet her it was obviously a better home for her. You owe it to both dogs to give them the best home and life possible, even if it isn't in yours. All I can say is that when I woke up every morning and dreaded facing her and the situation, feeling bad and worried for my male and knowing deep down that she and I were never going to bond well I knew it was the right thing to do for all of us- and it was. Trust your gut on this
 
#9 ·
My son insisted that Midnite didn't fit into our house, I on the other hand decided to show my son different. I busted butt with training and my son got to see a different dog. Midnite follows him everywhere when he visits from college and has crept his way into my sons heart in a big way.
 
#11 ·
Hello,

I agree with Stosh, except for one caveat, if you can afford it find a professional trainer for an objective opinion.

My rescue, Smitty and I did not click at first either. Though we didn't have any inter-dog grumbling in the house he and I were not clicking at all. I too adopted him as a young adult. It wasn't until I learned how to motivate him and train him that our bond grew. Now I cannot imagine not having him and I have learned more *from* him then I have from any other dogs I've had in the past.

Rehoming is sometimes necessary but just make sure you've covered all bases before you make your decision.
 
#14 ·
Rehome your dog as a last resort. The responsible thing to do is to exhaust all other remedies first. If they don't solve your issue then you may have to give your dog to a place where she would be more happy! In the end whatever you decide, I am sure the decision will be made with your dog's and your family's best interests at heart.

Good luck!
 
#15 ·
I don't know that I'd want to keep two females that don't mesh well.
It usually doesn't get better.
I have two that got along quite well when the younger one was still a pup/they are 17 months apart in age. But as Onyx matured(both were spayed at 6 mos of age) she was/is very dominant to the older Kacie and I have to manage them.
As long as one stays submissive, it usually works.
I think my submissive female would have absolutely blossomed if she didn't have the dominant one always trying to crash her happiness.
 
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#16 ·
It's only been a couple of months that you have had Violet. While I agree that rehoming to the right home is a totally acceptable situation IMO, I would put some work in first before making that decision.

Right now it sounds like Ambrosia and Violet are operating on their terms and figuring out on their own what the rules are for interaction. I wouldn't allow this. I would show both dogs that it is OK to play with happy energy at a certain excitement level. When they go over that level, play stops, period. This will show both dogs that you are in charge and they don't have to worry about regulating the other dog. They just have to cap themselves and if the other dog gets out of line, you will be there to step in. When play changes from fun to challenging, just step in and separate them, into other rooms if necessary. Inappropriate play means no play at all. Having a drag line on the new dog can help with this.

Bringing a dog into the home in December can be challenging in the northern climates. I know my established dogs go a little stir crazy in the winter sometimes, especially when the DW is the only one home to enrich their lives. This dog needs to spend time with the humans in the household, learning that it can safely and productively follow your direction. Lines of communication and habit need to be formed with Violet, creating a situation where she will look to you for guidance instead of working through it on her own.

You say it is difficult to separate them and work one on one. I bet you have a bedroom that can be used to separate the dogs when training. This will allow you to train focus on the human instead of the dog. It will allow your dog to learn as it is not constantly distracted by the other dog, pulling it's attention away from what is being taught. Until you can go outside for longer periods, I would recommend isolating the dogs during training until they can focus on you independently while being in the company of another dog.

I would start a leadership program right away with Violet. If a dog's resources magically appear every day, what motivation does the dog have to look to you for guidance? If you are the bringer of all things good, the dog will naturally think you are the leader. I would hand feed all meals during training. All interaction with the dog would involve the dog doing something that is asked before any type of reward. NILIF (Nothing In Life Is Free) is the common term for this. There is a lot of information on the web, and right on this site, concerning NILIF. I also recommend the leadership program outlined in Dr. Dodman's book The Well-Adjusted Dog


I suggest you begin regular obedience training, and feeding all of Violet's food during these training sessions. You can look for a trainer or do the training yourself. There are good training resources available in book format, DVD format and on YouTube.

and the



Michael Ellis
Training Positive Youtube Channel
Ahimsa Dog Training YouTube Channel
 
#17 ·
You may not be seeing Violet's total personality yet. She has been with you only a couple of months - some dogs settle in quicker, some don't and it takes a while to see the full package.

Violet makes 2 females in the house. This could be a matter of Ambrosia saying this is her house or it could be the beginnings of female aggression. It could also still be in the period of don't like the newcomer, but end up best friends.

Violet is relatively untrained; which at almost 1 1/2 yr old you have an almost grown dog with close to a puppy brain, can make it difficult to handle her.

I would suggest crate training both of them if they aren't. They would then have their own space to escape to when needed and when you aren't there they can be kept separate. It would also allow cooling off time and time for one on one training.

Locate a trainer with GSD knowledge. Have them in to observe the interaction between Violet and Ambrosia and help determine what kind of aggression you are seeing. Violet would be trained as well, which in turn will help her bond with you.

If after taking those steps, you feel she just doesn't fit, work with a rescue. With her having been trained, it will make her more attractive for adoption and you will know you have done everything you could to make it work first.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Are both of these girls spayed?

Frankly, the longer you keep them both, and the more work you put into making it work between them, the harder it will be if you do find that rehoming is the best solution.

If they are not both spayed, getting them both spayed may MAY make a difference, as more female-female problems will occur around seasons. However, females have a hormone that will actually relieve some tension, so spaying can make no difference or make things slightly worse. It just depends. If they are spayed BEFORE there is a bloody war, then, maybe there never need be a bloody war.

Females often have the green gene. Dogs have an emotional range that is similar to humans, like that of children between 2 and 6. Their emotions are not human emotions, but they resemble them. They can be more primitive, more raw, deeper, stronger. One of these emotions is jealousy.

A female GSD can be strongly devoted to her person or family. Enter another female. She is a threat. She is getting pets from HER person. They are paying attention to HER. It can be very bad.

Bitch-Bitch aggression can be much worse than Dog-Dog aggression, and it does NOT translate to critters outside the pack. In fact, it doesn't always translate to all females within the pack. Some bitches just don't like another bitch and it can make living with them very stressful.

If you had this pup from 8 weeks old, then I could understand wanting to go down every avenue before rehoming. The thing is, you've had her for a couple of months. She is just now settling in, and well, both girls are not yet sure whether they are ok with this.

If you are willing to use strict NILIF with both bitches and everyone in your home will also, provide plenty of individual daily exercise to tire them out physically and mentally, daily training for both of them, and crate both of them when you cannot supervise them, then you can make it work. Otherwise, I would suggest going ahead and finding a rescue that would be willing to help you find a suitable home for the one.

They are both becoming sexually mature, and it is like your husband expecting you to live with his x-wife while she goes to college.
 
#19 ·
Maybe it's because I foster routinely and have placed dozens of dogs, and maybe it's because I would not-so-secretly really like to kick Crookytail out to another home, but my feeling has always been that your primary obligation is to ensure the dog's happiness.

If the dog can have a great life with you, and can be happier there than anywhere else, great! Keep the dog. Make it happy. Honor that commitment completely to the end.

If for whatever reason the dog is not completely happy and fulfilled with you, and could/would be happier somewhere else, and there's nothing you can or want to do to alter that fact, and the dog would be a legitimately welcome addition to someone else's family (i.e., you are not just dumping an unmanageable problem into someone else's life), then rehome the dog.

I'm not egocentric enough to think that every dog on Earth is going to be happiest in my home. Many of them would be (and are) much happier being pampered as the center of attention in someone else's life.

I have never found it difficult to find awesome, loving, dedicated homes for my foster dogs. I blog about them a lot, with detailed writeups of their observed behavior, updates on their training progress, and new pictures and videos posted on a daily or near-daily basis. Then I post a link to the blog writeups on their Petfinder listings. Many rescues will be willing to post the dog as a courtesy listing if you ask them politely for help (and maybe offer a little volunteer work to compensate them for the inconvenience).

My experience has been that the very best homes are thrilled to have all that extra information, and start feeling an attachment to the dog right from the beginning. They will go to considerable lengths to adopt once they feel that connection. Meanwhile, not-so-good homes seem to feel intimidated or overwhelmed by the mountain of text and pretty much disappear after initial contact.

Putting all that stuff together involves a fair amount of work, but it is more effective than anything else I've tried in attracting great homes and weeding out less desirable ones. So that has been a really good strategy for me, personally, and if you do end up looking into rehoming options, that's an approach I would recommend.
 
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#22 ·
Very true but..Female/Female dynamics can be very different! Seltzer explained it very well!

I've dealt with Dominant Male dogs,Tow males fighting is usually over who's top dogs. Two females can fight simple because, the other dog exist! Good luck fixing that!

Not saying that's the case here, but it's something that anyone thinking about a two female dog household should be well aware of!

As I say my background is Boxer's, out here Boxer's and Buddies will not place a Female Boxer in a household that already has a Female Boxer! A different breed is a maybe.

I saw my baby girl nut open on my BullMastiff over baby kittens (my Mistake) I had to pull here off and I held her in a headlock till she calmed down.

Nobody got hurt but it made a permanent impression on me! I had never seen a dog move that fast!

That includes breaking up a neighbors GSD and Dobbie in a back yard fight. One owner was going to get a Gun! I grabbed a hose problem solved.


But my Female nutting up is what sticks most in mind. Two females..yes it can be done but, nothing I'll ever do.

And for everyone that has multi Female households with out issue..yep your better at then me! "A man's got to know his limitations!" :p
 
#23 ·
Thank you all for your input. I'm going to reply with some generalized points due to what people are saying, and my own thoughts over the course of the last day, so if it's not particularly precise I apologize.

James (my boyfriend) and I have both only owned male dogs until we got Ambrosia last summer. She is such a good dog for us. Well, more me, she's definitely "my dog." But needless to say, we've never owned two females before. We expected what one would from two males, a bit of scuffling, some misbehavior, some prickliness, but with males it subsides and becomes less frequent and less dangerous over time (usually, of course there are exceptions when a dog is aggressive, but neither of us had that). Meanwhile, here it seems to get worse and more frequent.

Separating them is an issue only because Violet really only wants to be with Ambrosia, who wants nothing to do with her. Since the first week they've been together, I haven't even seen Ambrosia sleep within a five foot distance of Violet.

More than anything, I think the two aren't really suited for each other and have absolutely opposite desires and needs. Ambrosia wants to learn, is focused, wants to be with humans, and loves nothing more than a good game of fetch followed by sleeping at my feet. Violet is more dog-oriented, wants to play with Ambrosia, has absolutely no interest in toys, and is far more difficult to train because she doesn't want to please us, she wants to please Ambrosia. In fact, the times she does the best in training is when she follows Ambrosia's example.

Ambrosia will learn a trick so you play with her, Violet doesn't want to learn anything because she has no reward system that we can provide her because she is not food-oriented, toy-oriented. She wants to play with the other dog and the other dog does not want to play with her.

There are no GSD trainers really in the area. The one trainer in the area doesn't even do one-on-one and I have been to them for a previous dog and was not particularly thrilled with the experience. It's more punishment oriented than I prefer, and I always have gotten better results at home using clicker training.

If I do give her up, I will have very specific guidelines for the home because I have a good idea of what she needs. Some of it we have, some of it we do not. She's not a burden or anything, so we have no problem keeping her until the right thing would come along, it's more that we feel she is not working out for her own benefit rather than ours.
 
#24 ·
praise and petting.

Thank you all for your input. I'm going to reply with some generalized points due to what people are saying, and my own thoughts over the course of the last day, so if it's not particularly precise I apologize.

James (my boyfriend) and I have both only owned male dogs until we got Ambrosia last summer. She is such a good dog for us. Well, more me, she's definitely "my dog." But needless to say, we've never owned two females before. We expected what one would from two males, a bit of scuffling, some misbehavior, some prickliness, but with males it subsides and becomes less frequent and less dangerous over time (usually, of course there are exceptions when a dog is aggressive, but neither of us had that). Meanwhile, here it seems to get worse and more frequent.

Separating them is an issue only because Violet really only wants to be with Ambrosia, who wants nothing to do with her. Since the first week they've been together, I haven't even seen Ambrosia sleep within a five foot distance of Violet.

More than anything, I think the two aren't really suited for each other and have absolutely opposite desires and needs. Ambrosia wants to learn, is focused, wants to be with humans, and loves nothing more than a good game of fetch followed by sleeping at my feet. Violet is more dog-oriented, wants to play with Ambrosia, has absolutely no interest in toys, and is far more difficult to train because she doesn't want to please us, she wants to please Ambrosia. In fact, the times she does the best in training is when she follows Ambrosia's example.

Ambrosia will learn a trick so you play with her,

>>>>> Violet doesn't want to learn anything because she has no reward system that we can provide her because she is not food-oriented, toy-oriented. <<<<<

She wants to play with the other dog and the other dog does not want to play with her.

There are no GSD trainers really in the area. The one trainer in the area doesn't even do one-on-one and I have been to them for a previous dog and was not particularly thrilled with the experience. It's more punishment oriented than I prefer, and I always have gotten better results at home using clicker training.

If I do give her up, I will have very specific guidelines for the home because I have a good idea of what she needs. Some of it we have, some of it we do not. She's not a burden or anything, so we have no problem keeping her until the right thing would come along, it's more that we feel she is not working out for her own benefit rather than ours.
 
#27 ·
Yeah, they have a hormone that can make them more calm, associated with the pieces parts that are removed. They did a study and found that bitches after a spay can actually be more reactive. On the flip side, a bitch coming into season, in standing heat, or in a false or regular pregnancy CAN have some hormonal changes that increase bitch fighting and moodyness in general. So, it's could be a trade off.

Got to love bitches. I feel like Hagrid when he is disappointed with a critters lack of poisonous fangs. "The gargoyles in the committee for the control of magical beasts have it in for interesting creatures." While I quoted that, it is really para-phrasing.
 
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