Hello, thank you for having me, this is my first post in your group. My husband, Matt and I have 2 dachshunds, our fist, Euri is a 13 year old neutered male silver dapple wirehair and is very calm, quiet and happy. Our newest member of the family, Finnegan is a red smooth coated neutered male miniature dachshund who will be 2 on September 29th. He is very reactive to dogs and some people. We adopted him as an 8 week old pup from a responsible breeder who wanted to find him a good pet home, he was born without a tail, (many purebred pups born with deformities are euthanized at birth or shortly after) our vet approached us to see if we wanted to take him because she knows we have lots of experience with the breed and with special needs pets as I am trained as a vet tech but not currently able to work in the field. Finnegan is totally normal physically with the exception of not having a tail, he is very active and usually very sweet, that is until he is in the presence of other dogs (dogs other than his dachshund brother that he lives with). We took Finn to agility classes, puppy play group, took very long walks in the woods surrounding our neighbourhood with him and took him absolutely everywhere with us since he was 8 weeks old to try and socialize him to dogs, people and different situations but to no avail, ever since we brought him home, he has gone ballistic in the presence of other dogs and has even tried to attack other dogs, especially large ones. We have had to alter our lives to manage this personality trait that he doesnt seem to improve on no matter what we try. Regular exercise, different collars, harnesses, head collars, attempted socialization and more have failed for us, Finn remains set in his ways and we are slowly realizing that this may just be who he is and that we may have to change our expectations. We are totally dedicated to giving our dogs the best possible lives that we can and he will always live here with us no matter what. I am home 24/7 with the dogs who are both very content and happy to be home with me but walks and outings are very unpleasant because of how Finnegan reacts when he sees a dog. He pulls, barks and makes awful noises that make people stop and stare in wonder of how a 12 pound dog could make such noises and how his much larger human owners cannot control his behaviour. My husband and I took the dogs to an open air antique market yesterday that we have taken them to several times since Finn was a puppy. It was a very trying day as there happened to be many other dogs there yesterday so Finn had many opportunities to see them and have his typical mini meltdowns each time we passed one. We left frustrated and a bit embarrassed after just 2 hours and he slept all the way home, it totally exhausted him and us to behave this way. Thank you for reading my admittedly long winded post about Finnegan, here is 2 photos of him, one waiting for my husband to throw his ball and one with him running to get it, fetch is his favourite activity.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 20:35:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015