My partner begged me for a year to have a dog, which I rejected and refuted for as long as possible but on Valentine's Day, against my better judgement, we came home with our Boston Terrier puppy, she was one day short of 9 weeks old. She is pedigree, was a very expensive dog to buy, and has good heritage, lots of descendants from the Wildax bloodline so I was hopeful that with lots of training, love and care she would turn out to be a good dog we could enjoy. Unfortunately, it has not really turned out this way...
I don't really know where to begin and am a bit upset writing this, so I apologise if the post becomes garbled or jumps from subject to subject. She is now 11 months old and I've just come in from what should have been an exhilarating and enjoyable country walk on a sunny, crisp, frosty autumn/winter afternoon, but instead I arrived home in tears, full of anger and frustration. I'm ashamed to say, I even told the dog I hated her on the way back.
In the last 3 months her walking has become worse and worse, she rarely heels and pulls a lot. Stopping and ignoring and walking in the other direction doesn't really help. She'll dig her heels in and I'm also ashamed to say, I pulled her along when I lost my temper this afternoon. I'm not proud of this, it's made me feel terrible and I'm in tears just thinking about it, so I don't need to be bashed further about it - I just need some help, I don't know how to fix this or how to help her anymore. She has issues when being outside walking, she is far too over-excited, despite the fact she gets 3 walks a day. My heart sinks when I see people and/or dogs coming the other way. She will always pull towards them and will jump up if I let her/didn't walk away. This particularly worries me with small children. She would not hurt them, maybe scratch a hand by accident, she just wants to say hello and be fussed but it's alarming for toddlers and parents and is an embarrassment for me. I can't let her near small children at all, for fear of her knocking one over or scratching them by accident. If people stop with their dogs, she no longer greets them nicely, she will greet them then dance around like a loon from side to side in front of them, sometimes front legs and paws splayed out, very quickly (she's a very fast dog), almost hanging from the lead in front of them. It's friendly on her part, she's trying to entice them to chase her, which she loves, but this can be intimidating for a lot of dogs and owners. It's very embarrassing because I have no control over it and I can see people think I have no control over the dog, and of course they are right. So, now I avoid people and dogs as much as I can, within the constraints of living on a housing estate. She will pull like a train to follow the dogs and people and pull to chase leaves, sniff grass etc. Nothing I say or do helps. She's not particularly motivated by food, I'd estimate that high value treats work on about 1 in 7 or 8 walks, and even then only periodically throughout the walk. If something she wants to see, sniff, do, etc is of more interest, the treat may as well not exist.
She has always been a wilful dog, very intelligent and stubborn, likes to get her own way. She learns exceptionally quickly, she can do all sorts of things - touch hands or a cone with her nose, roll over, sit, stay, wait, come, lie down, settle, go in her bed at bedtime, wee and have a drink of water on command when she's thirsty from playing, plus lots of other things and I'm even training her to play dead at the moment. I don't think intelligence is the issue, but may quite ironically be part of the problem. The training has always been good in the house but as soon as we go outside, it's like she becomes deaf and her training and commands mean very little to her for the most part, apart from basics like sit. I'm even struggling getting her to wait or stay now. From 12 weeks old up to about 3 months ago, we took her to training classes and she responded quite well, it was a bit hit and miss and she progressively became a bit more naughty in class too. Once on an off the lead exercise, she broke loose and caused chaos for 5 minutes, chasing all the other dogs and trying to get them to chase her, no one (even the trainer) could get her to stop - much to the mirth and amusement of the other dog owners but mostly to our shame! She is very playful and I know that all of this is harmless in that she won't do anyone or anything any harm whatsoever but the lack of control and obedience is frustrating at best.
To try and wrap this up, apart from today, it came to a bit of a pinnacle a couple of weeks ago when I got a text from our dog walker to say she couldn't get Xena to come back on to her lead and asked if her behaviour at home had been bolshy lately. She gave the dog walker the run about for 40 minutes and I also suspect she's insisting other dogs chase her and getting annoyed if they won't! Hence, the question the dog walker asked about bolshyness. The dog walker was frustrated and really surprised because Xena was always a dog she could rely on to behave and had good recall. I know she thinks it's a game and isn't doing all of this to wind us humans up but I'm at my wits end with it all. I'm beginning to hate walking her. And I hate myself for getting so wound up, frustrated and angry by it because I know that this is not Xena's fault, it will be ours
. I think it may be that she needs much more time/effort than we can both give her - we both are over 40, work full time, I work one day a week at home with her because I don't want her to be left alone so much and the dog walker comes in twice a week. Every other day, I come home at lunch time and walk her. I don't want to get rid of her, it would break mine and my fiance's heart, it's really not an option. We need to resolve this situation. However, I would be lying if I said it hadn't crossed my mind fleetingly in the last few weeks . In every other way she is a loving, funny, intelligent, energetic young dog which is why I want to do the best by her and try and get through this. I'd love to be able to let her off the lead and be completely confident she will come back and not be afraid to let her meet and greet other dogs and people. I want to be able to walk her without the constant pulling, a treat in the hand and using words like 'heel' or 'close' doesn't really work, at least not on any consistent basis. In short, I'd love to be able to enjoy walking her, which I really don't at the moment. Please help if you can!!!
P.S. I should just add, it 's not a food issue. Until a week ago we fed her high quality dry and wet food (Royal Canin & Barking Heads - not a crumb of Pedigree or Bakers or food of that low quality has ever passed her lips!) and a week ago we swapped to human grade complete raw - partly in an attempt to improve her behaviour and to see if she'd enjoy eating more, which she does about a hundredfold!
