Alas, not meant to be
Shadow - the new addition to the family - didn’t make it.
Parents had to take him back to his previous owners.
We liked him - got attached rather quickly - but when Shadow and Sis’s dog got a little enthusiastic in their not-playing-battles for dominance (two male dogs, both either used to being alone, need to establish which one is alpha), and fears started cropping up.
Fears that these dominate fights would lead to more than barred teeth, snarling and growling accompanied by nipping - that blood would be drawn, and one (or both) would be injured, possibly killed in the not-playing-games.
That is how we lost the Bassett-Hound Duke. He either couldn’t fight to defend himself, or was unwilling to bite back. Those wounds were life-threatening and permanently debilitating, and there is NO WAY any one in my family wanted to experience that again.
*sigh*
And we had just finished training him to fetch the ball (well, chase it and bring it back so the toss could be repeated endlessly).
No one is taking this return well. We all wanted him to remain part of the family - but since none of us know how to turn that aggression away from other dogs in the family-pack, away he went.
(Seems like every time I make an announcement like this before it becomes official/the trial period is over, it never happens or is derailed somehow and changed so it no longer resembles what I told people to expect.)
Parents had to take him back to his previous owners.
We liked him - got attached rather quickly - but when Shadow and Sis’s dog got a little enthusiastic in their not-playing-battles for dominance (two male dogs, both either used to being alone, need to establish which one is alpha), and fears started cropping up.
Fears that these dominate fights would lead to more than barred teeth, snarling and growling accompanied by nipping - that blood would be drawn, and one (or both) would be injured, possibly killed in the not-playing-games.
That is how we lost the Bassett-Hound Duke. He either couldn’t fight to defend himself, or was unwilling to bite back. Those wounds were life-threatening and permanently debilitating, and there is NO WAY any one in my family wanted to experience that again.
*sigh*
And we had just finished training him to fetch the ball (well, chase it and bring it back so the toss could be repeated endlessly).
No one is taking this return well. We all wanted him to remain part of the family - but since none of us know how to turn that aggression away from other dogs in the family-pack, away he went.
(Seems like every time I make an announcement like this before it becomes official/the trial period is over, it never happens or is derailed somehow and changed so it no longer resembles what I told people to expect.)