Reese he Chihuahua

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AriannaBottoni
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 8:56 am

Reese he Chihuahua

Post by AriannaBottoni »

Hello,
My name is Arianna. I need help with Reese. I am sorry if this is a long post, but I figured that the more information I give the easier it will be for you to help me. Reese is a Chihuahua (not sure if he is a pure breed or not, he is a little bigger than all of the Chihuahuas I have seen). He is about 3 years old. Reese is a rescue dog and he is currently my foster dog. He has been with me for almost 4 months now. He used to be a breeder, and was kept in a trailer with his mate for all of his life. When he was rescued he was extremely shy and scared, in particular he was scared of men. I really think he never was socialized before, and all he knew was just that trailer and his mate. After we got him out of that trailer he was brought to the vet right away, he was checked out for his general health, he had a couple of teeth that came off (poor nutrition I assume). He was neutered and had his shots. Besides his teeth, he was a pretty healthy dog. As I said he was very shy, and was scared of being picked up. He would curl up in a corner and shake. I need to say that Reese, shares the house with other animals:
My dog Max, a Great Pyrenees of about 8 years old (he is calm and quiet, unfortunately Max has osteosarcoma).
My dog Chloe, a Dachshund of about 8 years old. She was a puppy mill dog too, and she is very good with all of the dogs I foster.
Cierra, a 7 months old Chihuahua rescued from an animal hoarder, she is my other foster dog and has been with us for about 3 months (she was rescued after Reese).
Then I have 2 cats, 2 rabbits 1 ferret and 2 mice. The rabbits and the ferret are not a problem because they have their own private space. But Reese shares the house with the cats and the dogs. For the first weeks Reese was very shy but adjusted with me very fast. He was scared of my boyfriend (who also lives there, I forgot to mention him….). Now he trusts me and only me, I would say he adores me, he is everywhere I am in the house and never takes his eyes off me for 1 second. He learned to walk on the leash, but he walks only with me and not with my boyfriend, he does not move with him. He trusts my boyfriend now and would go close to him and lets him pet him, but he does not like to be picked up by him. I can do everything with Reese, he trusts me completely. He is good at housebreaking, and gets to walk 2 or 3 times a day. He eats grain free Halo (like all of my dogs) and is learning to sit. Now the problems with Reese started more than a month ago. My boyfriend’s mom came to visit us, and he bit her ankles. He did not break the skin but it was a very aggressive bite. He never did anything like that before. Since that day the problems got worse and worse. He started chasing my cats, he attacks everybody that comes in the house (except for me and my boyfriend) he tries to bite their legs or shoes. If I take him out to potty and I call him he comes back right away, but when he sees someone walking by the house he runs after them and he does not listen to me. He ran after a man twice and bit his shoes, that person kicked him (Reese was not hurt), but now I always keep him on the leash. Also when people come over, I keep him on the leash, because he tries to bite everybody, men and women. After a little bit he calms down, but I do not feel comfortable having him free in the house when there is people over. In the last few days he started to bite my Pyrenees. He never did that before, yesterday when Max got back from his walk Reese bit him. It happened twice. He never tried to bite or was aggressive outside our house, but now I am afraid it might happen. I am also afraid he might start to attack my boyfriend. I called a dog trainer, but he said it was not worth working with Reese because he is my foster dog, he said he would work with him and the new owners if needed. But I do not feel comfortable having him up for adoption right now, because he has a lot of issues, and I am afraid he might bite someone. When he first came to my home he was only shy and not aggressive at all. Now it is getting worse and worse. Do you have any suggestion? I really do not know what else to do. If nobody wants him I might keep him but I still need to fix his problems, I always have people and new fosters at home. I feel guilty, maybe it was my fault he turned aggressive, maybe I spoiled him too much.
Thank you for your time,
Arianna
JudyN
Posts: 7018
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 1:20 pm
Location: Dorset, UK
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Re: Reese he Chihuahua

Post by JudyN »

Hi Arianna and welcome to the forum. Don't apologise for the long post, the more detail the better! (I love the fact that you listed all your other animals and forgot to mention your partner - you've got your priorities right! :lol: )

I'm not an expert so don't have any advice, but if you repost in the Training section viewforum.php?f=4 more people should see your post.

What I would say, though, is that I very much doubt that it's anything you have done that has contributed to his behaviour. Reese is probably just coming out of his shell and feels he can do something about his fear rather than being totally shut down as he was to begin with. I would imagine that dealing with his issues will be difficult as he has missed vital socialisation at critical periods in his development, but I wish you every luck with him.

And shame on the trainer who didn't think it was worth working on him while he was with you :evil:
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
AriannaBottoni
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 8:56 am

Re: Reese he Chihuahua

Post by AriannaBottoni »

Thank you Judy. As you said yes, I have priorities.... :lol:
I will repost in the section you suggested. I was not impressed by that trainer either, and I am not recommending him for sure to other people.
Thank you so much!
Ary
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