Help / advice needed with our rescue dog
Discussion
Hi all. Been a long time lurker of this section so it's about time I made a post.
Last August our family finally found a dog that didn't cause any allergies with the 2 out of 4 family members who seemed to be allergic to every breed. We decided to rescue a dog and not buy a puppy, and ended up with a staffy/ black Labrador cross called Ellie. She is over 30kgs and very muscular so I suspect there may be another breed in the mix too but that doesn't bother us. She has been the perfect dog in almost every aspect - perfectly house trained, trained to sleep downstairs and she never goes upstairs even after we took down the stairgate we had initially bought for her. She is a big wuss despite her appearance and would happily let even a stranger pull a toy or food out of her mouth with no fuss at all. She also seems to enjoy greeting strangers like they are long lost friends.
She is the perfect family dog in many ways except for one. Whenever we do anything that she even remotely associates with going on a walk she goes absolutely mental, almost like she's a different dog. She gets walked between 2-3 times a day so I doubt this is from excess energy. The manic behaviour then continues until she is back in the house. She will pull on the lead so badly that taking her for a 30 minute walk feels like you've completed a marathon. She still listens to commands like sit or stay and she will do this when pulling the lead but as soon as you begin to take a step forward she notices and begins pulling again, and we have tried all sorts to stop her pulling so badly to no avail. It is this problem that has made us wary of ever letting her off the lead - in the year we've had her she has only been off lead either in the garden or a contained area (local tennis courts are a favourite) to try and improve her behaviour off the lead. This puts her in to a catch 22 type situation - she could do with running around on her own accord to help her burn off steam faster but while she is so manic on the lead we worry if we let her off she wouldn't come back until she fancied it - and she looks quite intimidating to a lot of people so that is something we just can't do until we are 100% confident in her.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for making it this far if you did - any advice would be really appreciated.
Oh and when I'm not posting from my phone I will upload some pics of her when we got her and how she is now
Thanks in advance.
Last August our family finally found a dog that didn't cause any allergies with the 2 out of 4 family members who seemed to be allergic to every breed. We decided to rescue a dog and not buy a puppy, and ended up with a staffy/ black Labrador cross called Ellie. She is over 30kgs and very muscular so I suspect there may be another breed in the mix too but that doesn't bother us. She has been the perfect dog in almost every aspect - perfectly house trained, trained to sleep downstairs and she never goes upstairs even after we took down the stairgate we had initially bought for her. She is a big wuss despite her appearance and would happily let even a stranger pull a toy or food out of her mouth with no fuss at all. She also seems to enjoy greeting strangers like they are long lost friends.
She is the perfect family dog in many ways except for one. Whenever we do anything that she even remotely associates with going on a walk she goes absolutely mental, almost like she's a different dog. She gets walked between 2-3 times a day so I doubt this is from excess energy. The manic behaviour then continues until she is back in the house. She will pull on the lead so badly that taking her for a 30 minute walk feels like you've completed a marathon. She still listens to commands like sit or stay and she will do this when pulling the lead but as soon as you begin to take a step forward she notices and begins pulling again, and we have tried all sorts to stop her pulling so badly to no avail. It is this problem that has made us wary of ever letting her off the lead - in the year we've had her she has only been off lead either in the garden or a contained area (local tennis courts are a favourite) to try and improve her behaviour off the lead. This puts her in to a catch 22 type situation - she could do with running around on her own accord to help her burn off steam faster but while she is so manic on the lead we worry if we let her off she wouldn't come back until she fancied it - and she looks quite intimidating to a lot of people so that is something we just can't do until we are 100% confident in her.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for making it this far if you did - any advice would be really appreciated.
Oh and when I'm not posting from my phone I will upload some pics of her when we got her and how she is now
Thanks in advance.
Wow, didn't expect so many replies so fast!
Jasandjules - she was given to us as a half staffy half black lab. However due to some physical features and the fact she weighs about the same as a pure labrador its quite possible theres some other breed in there along the lines.
Apologies if I forget to reply to anyones questions.
She is fed on 'Butchers' dog food. I admit I have no idea what the 'best' food for them is, although i know the cheapo choices are obviously bad ideas and we wouldn't skimp on anything related to her, shes rather spoiled.
She gets around 90 minutes of brisk walking on a day where she is walked twice, if she is walked 3 times it will be around 2 hours of walking, plus with free access to the garden all day to sprint around with her toys.
Tintopracer - she is walked at almost random times each time - morning walk can vary between 5 and 8 am, evening walks can vary from 3 pm until 10. Even if she is in bed asleep in the middle of the night and I just jangle her lead she will go into full on 'manic' mode, whimpering and yelping and jumping up and down all over the place.
She is absolutely fine in the car - even from the first day we got her it always seemed like she had previous experience of car travel as she loves it. If I am walking her and nip to my car to get something out she will try and barge past me and jump in! just to sit there and look at me as if to say 'where are we going?!'
Finding another dog to walk her with off lead is possibly tricky - she is not aggressive at all to other dogs however unless meeting them in our house (which is something I am unsure of, due to possible territory disputes) as she currently will be far too manic and boisterous when she is outside to meet another dog without completely scaring them, this is the experience we've noticed so far when interacting with other dogs anyway. She will cry and wimper at the sight of a dog in the distance and pull towards them so hard to go and sniff their butt and say hello that the other dog must see this as an aggresive action and tends to react accordingly defensive, and that sets up how the whole encounter will be - one dog petrified of Ellie because of her 'entrance' towards the other dog and Ellie going mental and hyper because she gets to meet a new friend, not knowing that she is coming across as a bit scary. There is only one dog who is happy to see her - a german shepherd who walks locally to us. Problem is he has serious hip and leg problems so they could never play off lead together.
When she is walking on the lead absolutely nothing gets her to pay attention to you. Steak, chicken, her favourite ham, nothing, her favourite toys are even less effecive than food. Often she has actually took a treat off me and put it in her mouth and then something else grabbed her attention back and she literally drops it on the floor and begins to pull again before shes even eaten it.
Tried all the usual tricks like stopping each time she pulls, turning in a random direction, making her heel every time she pulls. Its like she knows what we want her to do but is too stubborn to actually do it. We have even tried putting her lead on in the house so she gets used to just wearing it and not associating it with walks - all this achieved was her charging around the house full pelt for hours at a time, which wasnt so fun once the novelty had worn off lol.7
Scdan4 - I agree that her being on the lead is part of the problem. However until we are 100% sure she will come back to us off lead it is a scary thought letting her off as she would be out of sight in seconds and a long way away. We have however let her run around in the garden playing games until she is that tired she is panting excessively before taking her out for a walk - this didn't do much other than make her even more hyped up about going on walkies.
Thanks for the suggestions so far anyway guys - she currently has a full body harness as her pulling is so bad anything near her neck makes her choke as she walks, we know the body harness allows her to pull more strongly but until now didn't know of any alternatives. Will have a look into the head and nose harness. Until then all I can think of is to get her to play for a while fetch while in a confined area like some tennis courts, then when shes knackered see how she behaves on a walk then.
Jasandjules - she was given to us as a half staffy half black lab. However due to some physical features and the fact she weighs about the same as a pure labrador its quite possible theres some other breed in there along the lines.
Apologies if I forget to reply to anyones questions.
She is fed on 'Butchers' dog food. I admit I have no idea what the 'best' food for them is, although i know the cheapo choices are obviously bad ideas and we wouldn't skimp on anything related to her, shes rather spoiled.
She gets around 90 minutes of brisk walking on a day where she is walked twice, if she is walked 3 times it will be around 2 hours of walking, plus with free access to the garden all day to sprint around with her toys.
Tintopracer - she is walked at almost random times each time - morning walk can vary between 5 and 8 am, evening walks can vary from 3 pm until 10. Even if she is in bed asleep in the middle of the night and I just jangle her lead she will go into full on 'manic' mode, whimpering and yelping and jumping up and down all over the place.
She is absolutely fine in the car - even from the first day we got her it always seemed like she had previous experience of car travel as she loves it. If I am walking her and nip to my car to get something out she will try and barge past me and jump in! just to sit there and look at me as if to say 'where are we going?!'
Finding another dog to walk her with off lead is possibly tricky - she is not aggressive at all to other dogs however unless meeting them in our house (which is something I am unsure of, due to possible territory disputes) as she currently will be far too manic and boisterous when she is outside to meet another dog without completely scaring them, this is the experience we've noticed so far when interacting with other dogs anyway. She will cry and wimper at the sight of a dog in the distance and pull towards them so hard to go and sniff their butt and say hello that the other dog must see this as an aggresive action and tends to react accordingly defensive, and that sets up how the whole encounter will be - one dog petrified of Ellie because of her 'entrance' towards the other dog and Ellie going mental and hyper because she gets to meet a new friend, not knowing that she is coming across as a bit scary. There is only one dog who is happy to see her - a german shepherd who walks locally to us. Problem is he has serious hip and leg problems so they could never play off lead together.
When she is walking on the lead absolutely nothing gets her to pay attention to you. Steak, chicken, her favourite ham, nothing, her favourite toys are even less effecive than food. Often she has actually took a treat off me and put it in her mouth and then something else grabbed her attention back and she literally drops it on the floor and begins to pull again before shes even eaten it.
Tried all the usual tricks like stopping each time she pulls, turning in a random direction, making her heel every time she pulls. Its like she knows what we want her to do but is too stubborn to actually do it. We have even tried putting her lead on in the house so she gets used to just wearing it and not associating it with walks - all this achieved was her charging around the house full pelt for hours at a time, which wasnt so fun once the novelty had worn off lol.7
Scdan4 - I agree that her being on the lead is part of the problem. However until we are 100% sure she will come back to us off lead it is a scary thought letting her off as she would be out of sight in seconds and a long way away. We have however let her run around in the garden playing games until she is that tired she is panting excessively before taking her out for a walk - this didn't do much other than make her even more hyped up about going on walkies.
Thanks for the suggestions so far anyway guys - she currently has a full body harness as her pulling is so bad anything near her neck makes her choke as she walks, we know the body harness allows her to pull more strongly but until now didn't know of any alternatives. Will have a look into the head and nose harness. Until then all I can think of is to get her to play for a while fetch while in a confined area like some tennis courts, then when shes knackered see how she behaves on a walk then.
Ps - a few pics of her here for your viewing.
This is a pic of her on the first day we picked her up, she was approximately 18 months old at the time and weighed 19-20 kg, she was about 5 KG underweight and her coat and the pads of her paws were in a pretty bad way which improved a lot after a few weeks of proper nutrition and care.
https://imageshack.com/i/pa3746c6j
Working out her new surroundings on the first day
https://imageshack.com/i/paaa7b02j
Already in love with the family even after an hour of being home
https://imageshack.com/i/ex3464d0j
Trying out her bed, which she very quickly outgrew!
https://imageshack.com/i/iq8c770aj
Trying out her 'doggy bath' thinking she wouldn't like our human one. Turns out she thinks this is just a nice chair for her and she loves our human bath
https://imageshack.com/i/eyacc276j
She put on just over 10 kgs from the age of 18 months to approaching 3 years old now.
This is how she currently looks: (yes we did train her to stay in the shaded corner on hot days - as you can see she has snuk forwards slowly so she can sunbathe!)
https://imageshack.com/i/ez83abeej
Cooling off in her 'window chair' (she actually has two of these chairs - she isn't allowed on the leather human chairs so we got her one where she can sit by the window to watch the world go by and also one nearer to where we sit when we are in the living room, spoiled thing.
https://imageshack.com/i/id8876a8j
https://imageshack.com/i/ipe0808dj
Here she is sulking because she was kicked out of the living room while we moved some furniture around:
https://imageshack.com/i/exb3b4a9j
Trying to attack the fox that escapes from our garden near the shed
https://imageshack.com/i/kp9512ffj
This 'trick' she decided to start doing herself! she acts as if she is a human sometimes
https://imageshack.com/i/ewc3e543j
Finally, a picture of her which probably sums her up best - a (albeit crappy quality) shot of her mid air about to pounce on a tennis ball like its actually alive.
https://imageshack.com/i/idab07b5p
Hope these pics work.
This is a pic of her on the first day we picked her up, she was approximately 18 months old at the time and weighed 19-20 kg, she was about 5 KG underweight and her coat and the pads of her paws were in a pretty bad way which improved a lot after a few weeks of proper nutrition and care.
https://imageshack.com/i/pa3746c6j
Working out her new surroundings on the first day
https://imageshack.com/i/paaa7b02j
Already in love with the family even after an hour of being home
https://imageshack.com/i/ex3464d0j
Trying out her bed, which she very quickly outgrew!
https://imageshack.com/i/iq8c770aj
Trying out her 'doggy bath' thinking she wouldn't like our human one. Turns out she thinks this is just a nice chair for her and she loves our human bath
https://imageshack.com/i/eyacc276j
She put on just over 10 kgs from the age of 18 months to approaching 3 years old now.
This is how she currently looks: (yes we did train her to stay in the shaded corner on hot days - as you can see she has snuk forwards slowly so she can sunbathe!)
https://imageshack.com/i/ez83abeej
Cooling off in her 'window chair' (she actually has two of these chairs - she isn't allowed on the leather human chairs so we got her one where she can sit by the window to watch the world go by and also one nearer to where we sit when we are in the living room, spoiled thing.
https://imageshack.com/i/id8876a8j
https://imageshack.com/i/ipe0808dj
Here she is sulking because she was kicked out of the living room while we moved some furniture around:
https://imageshack.com/i/exb3b4a9j
Trying to attack the fox that escapes from our garden near the shed
https://imageshack.com/i/kp9512ffj
This 'trick' she decided to start doing herself! she acts as if she is a human sometimes
https://imageshack.com/i/ewc3e543j
Finally, a picture of her which probably sums her up best - a (albeit crappy quality) shot of her mid air about to pounce on a tennis ball like its actually alive.
https://imageshack.com/i/idab07b5p
Hope these pics work.
Thanks tintop - she's a real character
Can't recall the names off the top of my head but this is the third different brand of food we have tried her with. She seems to like this the most and we only give her 2 meals a day as this seems to be the right amount for her to maintain weight without getting fat, she is apparently meant to be on 3 meals a day as a ballpark figure for her weight.
She obviously has some treats through the day but I really can't see her behavioural problems out of the house being diet related. Even if we put her lead on and let her out into the garden she will go completely mental spinning around and rolling everywhere. Just not sure how to deal with this one issue as other than that she really is the perfect dog! To all the people who initially think SBT crosses are all nasty dogs she has changed a lot of the people that she's encountered perspective on the breed. She also obviously gets people crossing the road with their dog to avoid her and other problems associated with this breed, like certain classes of people saying 'wow mate that's a big staffy' etc.
Can't recall the names off the top of my head but this is the third different brand of food we have tried her with. She seems to like this the most and we only give her 2 meals a day as this seems to be the right amount for her to maintain weight without getting fat, she is apparently meant to be on 3 meals a day as a ballpark figure for her weight.
She obviously has some treats through the day but I really can't see her behavioural problems out of the house being diet related. Even if we put her lead on and let her out into the garden she will go completely mental spinning around and rolling everywhere. Just not sure how to deal with this one issue as other than that she really is the perfect dog! To all the people who initially think SBT crosses are all nasty dogs she has changed a lot of the people that she's encountered perspective on the breed. She also obviously gets people crossing the road with their dog to avoid her and other problems associated with this breed, like certain classes of people saying 'wow mate that's a big staffy' etc.
Gassing Station | All Creatures Great & Small | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff