ImpostorMom

I did something today that I’ve never done before. I surrendered a pet that I love to a rescue organization so that they might find a home for her that is better suited for her needs. It was a sad thing to do and I cried but I know that it was the best thing for all of us.

We have had two Australian Shepherds. One we’ve had since he was a puppy. The other we adopted a few months after we got the puppy but she was about 4-6 years old at the time. We got her from the pound and the main reason was because she looked just like our dog that had died recently.

We grew to love her and tolerate her antics but the less and less time we have for her the worse her neurosis became and we finally just had to face the fact that we just aren’t giving her the life she deserves. And in turn she’s making us miserable.

She needs ALOT of exercise and when she doesn’t get it she turns into a big ball of nervous energy. She chews, she fights, she doesn’t listen, she barks, she licks, she’s just generally irritating. And when all these things happen we get frustrated and we yell because any other volume gets no reaction from her. Oh and you have to yell three sometimes four times before she’ll listen to you.

I’m coming to really believe that she was never a good fit for us. She is an incredibly dominant dog and thus requires a very dominant master to keep her in line. Neither myself or my husband are that type of master. This has led to her taking the dominant role in our “pack” and it leads to all sorts of aggressive and undesirable behavior. The most frequent would be the disobedience. The worst and most dangerous would be her inherent need to “protect” us if we ever take her anywhere. Because of that we have basically stopped taking her anywhere and we’ve resorted to locking her up when we have people over. (She’s nipped and tried to herd several of our friends.)

She’s never been anything but complete sweet to Boog and I assume that is because she sees him as part of her pack. However I would never trust her around any other children. All of these things coupled with the fact that our poor son now thinks that an appropriate way to interact with your pet is to scream at them has led us to give her up in hopes that the qualified professionals can find a better match for her.

Of course there is a whole other dimension to this drama as well, that qualified professional is a friend of mine and she’s pretty upset with us. She just does not understand how we could ever even consider giving up a dog we’ve had for 4.5 years. I’m hoping that over time she may be able to see our point of view but to her we are giving up one of our children. I also hope that it doesn’t completely ruin what little bit of friendship we have left.

I did think about that before approaching her with the news that we’d decided to give the dog up and I made the decision that if that were to happen it would be unfortunate but it was not a reason to keep the dog. I have to do what I feel is best for myself and my family. Believe it or not that includes the dog. I truly believe she will be happier with someone else. My friend doesn’t see it that way though and she’ll have to try and see it from another perspective or hold it against us forever. There’s really not much I can do about that either way.

So we’re a single dog household again. Our other dog is the polar opposite of the one we gave up. He’s a total beta dog and much less high energy. He’ll be heartbroken for a while I’m sure. His canine buddy is all he’s ever known. But we’ll be able to include him more with the family so I think he’ll be ok eventually. It was a sad day today but I hope that in the end we’ll all be a little happier.