I need advice from people who are great at understanding canine behavior and solving related issues for what is a rather thorny (and potentially tragic, dog-health-wise) situation for this inexperienced dog owner. I'll make it brief, then tell the (much,
) longer story inside. We have a new rescue dog (our first dog; female, a little under 2 years old) who is just now beginning to feel really at ease and at home after being with us for a month, and all our efforts towards house training have finally paid off, and she is doing beautifully... But, we are going to have to take care of a friend's un-neutered young male dog for two-four weeks in our small apartment, and there are very many things that worry me a great deal, and I
need good advice. Nearly full explanation follows, and it's very long - so sorry! - but it's important stuff to me. Bear with, if at all possible.
I'll begin by saying that it really isn't an option to refuse this favor, for reasons that I won't get into simply because it will make the way-too-long-post twice as long without offering any information that will help you help me.
Here are all the relevant facts:
Our dog is a female rescue mixed breed of around one and a half years old that was spayed (and had a pregnancy termination) six weeks ago. She's been with us for about five weeks. She weighs a little under 30 pounds (12 kilos), and is about 17 inches tall (42 centimeters). She's at risk for an immune disease that could result in her death, but the more healthy and stress-free her life is, the better her chances are - and she can possibly go from borderline to what is considered "negative" we are told, with a great, healthy home life and a little luck.
The dog that will be staying with us for 2 to 4 weeks is about nine months old, a miniature poodle mix (probably), un-neutered, adult, who weighs... I don't know... 15 pounds (7 kilos) and is (again, a guess) about maybe 11-12 inches (28-30 centimeters) tall. Before we got our dog, he stayed with us before, for two weeks, and then again for a week, but as a puppy, which was a totally different kettle of fish.
Our dog was very submissive - way
overly submissive - and depressed when we got her, and it was a struggle to house train her because she was terrified to pee in front of us... so she would hold it for ridiculous lengths of time, then pee when she couldn't hold it any more, only when we weren't looking, usually in the house. All of those problems are solved, but just recently. She's become happy, jaunty, much, much more confident, relaxed, and pees like a hero on our walks. She never goes in the house any more, and has been on a totally regular peeing/pooing schedule for a solid two weeks. Great, great,
great. We've been so happy about all this. She is still extremely anxious about any possibility of separation from us, and that will be our next hurdle - but not the immediate problem.
The immediate problems related to the doggy-visitor-to-be are these:
The male sprays/marks and pees anywhere where there are other dogs; he will have anxiety from being separated from his owner, and being here - which is now the obvious territory of a different dog, though he once stayed here alone. From these facts, and stories about why he now can't stay at other places, I expect all the spraying/marking/peeing behavior to be super bad. Super. Bad.
He was here for less than an hour last night, sprayed, maybe peed... and our dog who has been
perfect for two weeks peed on the floor right in front of me about ten minutes after he left.
I can't let my house become a dog latrine!
He tries to hump her, non-stop. NON-STOP. srsly. I am not going to be able to let them be together except for extremely limited, supervised periods, it seems to me, because she will eventually either bite him if she feels up to it, or he will shred her to ribbons with his sharp little claws grabbing onto her (usually right around her shaved belly with incision) and turn her into a drooling lunatic with this
incessant assault.
Our dog is at risk, health-wise. She has an exposure to
an illness that most of you won't be familiar with because it almost doesn't exist in the U.S. and U.K., but is very common in the Mediterranean basin. The best way to imagine it is like HIV vs. AIDs; she is healthy and asymptomatic, but it is important for her immune system to be strong, and her stress level low. She does not test positive for the disease, but she does not test negative - she's on the cusp. We have been told that her levels can improve with a healthy and less stressful life, which is exactly what we've been trying to establish.
The male dog barks and growls at everyone who passes our door. We are on the bottom floor (everyone passes our door, in other words) and have four neighbors in the building (plus whoever visits them, visits us, delivers pizza, etc.), and this means a lot of barking, at all hours. It's a really, really, quiet neighborhood, and the barking sounds like suddenly turning your stereo up to max for a minute or two, over and over. And over. (When he was a puppy and stayed with us, he didn't do this until the last three days he was with us... and it was nerve wracking. Our neighbors were not amused.)
I am not going to be able to provide the exercise he needs. He will be here in July - the hottest month in Greece (it was 103F here today, and it's still June). I am going to have to walk them separately, because there is no way I can handle the two on the same walk, and I'm not planning on taking him very far afield at all, because he challenges other male dogs (and he's tiny), and there are lots of dogs around here... lots of dogs on leashes (which will just be embarassing) but also lots of loose dogs (which could be tragic). My female is okay, but I'm not going to feel safe taking him much further than up and down our street. Even if I could, I don't know how much more walking I can take in the extreme temperatures. I plan to let him out in our
extremely limited outside space when the temperature isn't ridiculous... but I can't do this at sunrise or sunset when the mosquitoes are bad, because they are a vector for the disease I mentioned above (my girl is actually probably less a risk as an agent than other loose dogs around the area). I'm a little hogtied in this. I can't let them play together for extended periods in the house, unless his behavior towards her becomes far, far less aggressive.
I am terrified that there will be a bitch in heat somewhere in the neighborhood, and he will go insane. Dogs can be in heat for two to four weeks, and this makes me tremble. He lives at the top of an apartment building where there are no other dogs, and he's in perpetual frenzied lust... I don't think our friend realizes what this difference in setting and location is actually going to mean now that he's an adult, but it's not possible to talk rationally with her right now.
He smells bad, a lot. Not from not being washed (for sure), and *probably* not even from anal glands... I don't know. Something to do with being so horny, I think - and it makes me feel ill. It's not all the time, but it's a lot - and when it is happening, I can barely stand it. In fact, I can't get it out of my nose. I don't even know when/if it's stopped, and just lingering. The idea of living with this smell for at least two weeks, and maybe a month, is making feel sick right now.
VERY IMPORTANT: I live in Greece... We are incredibly backwards in terms of products that could help with a lot of this stuff. Think "super basic". I'm not going to be able to get the nice mama-dog-lactose-smell thingy that calms dogs down, or anything above the level of a society that still pretty much views having a dog in the house as bizarre behavior. We have some things... we have almost no sophisticated canine/feline products.
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Okay! There's your stimulating challenge! Help me if you can, suckers! My puny plans so far are these: Try to get a sturdy toddler playpen (nope, can't get a pet playpen here) so that I can separate him from my dog, without closing either one away from the rest of the "pack" (we can move the playpen wherever everybody is, living room, bedroom, whatever); To make a "Belly Band" (nope, can't buy here) for when I let him play in the house out of the pen, to keep him from marking/peeing everywhere; To give him as much time outside on our tiny deck as possible, with play, given the ridiculous weather; I bought totally disgusting some-animal's-feet-or-something kind of things (at rather great expense) for him to chew on to involve/distract him; I have other toys for him, and will be picking up and putting down toys, chewies, etc. as separation allows, since my girl is possessive of her own stuff; I'm going to try the coins-rattling-in-the-can thing for the barking, or squirt him with a water pistol when he does the guard-barking. (hate to do it, but it's going to be intolerable.)
He is only acting naturally, and I want the visit period to be as good and anxiety-free as possible for him. But I can't let him spray/pee all over my house (and I think even with the precautions I've come up with, my dog's super-nice current house training is going to be fucked), and I can't let him harass my dog into life-threatening illness. I'd rather not have all our neighbors totally hate us, and, preferably, I won't spend two-to-four weeks in miserable, miserable July feeling like puking up my guts because of that weird, awful smell thing (but that's really last on my list).
I really do need help here.
and for what it's worth, I did advise our friend to have her dog neutered when he was a puppy... and she acted like I suggested having his head removed to make dog ownership easier. She's actually at an even less rational level at the moment, and it's crazy, but, just... we can't say "no".
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If it came down to it, and things were miserable, and your dog's health was not doing well, could you take the male dog to an animal kennel for the remainder of the time your friend is gone? You'd be paying for it, but it might be worth it to have your sanity back.
posted by All.star at 8:45 AM on June 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]