I think it’s finally safe to say my newest addition to the
family, Eden, a two-year-old boxer and Rhodesian ridgeback mix, just might work
out after all.
Her antics after I adopted her forced me to put her on
probation for a while. But as it turned out, I discovered she wasn’t the one
who needed training…I was. I had to learn to think like a dog. And believe me,
it wasn’t easy. I have enough trouble
trying to think like a human.
I adopted Eden from a shelter after I fell in love with her
photo online. Her history in the description also drew me to her. It said that
in the course of only a few weeks, she had been taken from her previous home to
a high-kill shelter in Tennessee, was rescued and brought to a shelter up here
in New Hampshire, and then was placed in a foster home.
During my first meeting with Eden, her foster mother told me
Eden wasn’t housebroken, was shy and was just learning to walk on a leash.
Still, I decided I wanted her. The
first thing I did after making that decision was stock up on Nature’s Miracle,
the best stuff on earth, in my opinion, for cleaning up anything and everything
that might come out of a dog.
When Eden first entered my house, everything seemed fine.
She and Willow, my rottweiler, instantly began to play together. I kept my eyes
glued on her though, mainly because I expected her to run around the house and
mark her territory. But she was fine.
In fact, everything continued to be fine for the first
couple of days. Eden smoothly adapted to her new environment and even better,
contrary to what I’d been told, she turned out to be fully housebroken.
“This is working out perfectly!” I thought. “Eden is fitting
right in, no problems whatseover. We’re a match made in heaven!”
How naïve I was.
The first negative thing I noticed about her was she was a
little too possessive and clingy. She
didn’t like it when I paid attention to Willow, and she constantly clung to me
– so much so, I contemplated changing her name to Saran Wrap.
About four days after I first adopted Eden, I got up one
morning to find my hallway runner in shreds. This was a rug that had taken me
six months to get by special order because I’d wanted it to exactly match the
pattern on my living-room rug. So it broke my heart to see the entire border
unraveled and lying in a heap that resembled rug spaghetti. My $19 accent rug
from Wal-Mart, however, was untouched. Although I didn’t have any concrete
proof which dog had done the damage, I was positive it had to be Eden. And later,
when I discovered a piece of yarn stuck between her teeth, my suspicions were
confirmed.
The next rug to become the victim of “The Shredder” was the one under the dining
table. She chewed off all four of its corners – which at least made it
symmetrical. That’s when I really began to grow concerned about what her next
victim would be. I prayed it wouldn’t be the living room rug, beige with a
brown and burgundy Native-American pattern on it. Not only was it what I had
based all of the décor in my living room on – it was irreplaceable. I tried not
to envision it being turned into a 5’x7’ jigsaw puzzle.
Several of my friends suggested I crate Eden at bedtime or
whenever I was going to be out of the house for a while. But a visit to the vet
for Eden’s wellness check pretty much nixed that idea. She was fine at the
vet’s…until they took her out back to weigh her. The minute she saw the cages
back there, she freaked out, and there was no calming her down. The vet said
the cages probably reminded her of the ones in the shelters, and she was
terrified of being abandoned again. The vet also said crating her probably
wouldn’t be a good idea, seeing she already had anxiety issues, because she
might end up injuring herself.
A few days later, I went to a concert. When I returned home,
I immediately noticed that my biggest fear had been realized – the living-room
rug was rolled back, and the separate non-skid liner I’d put underneath it had
been turned into confetti. I flew over to the rug to check it out. The very tip
of one corner had been chewed off, but the rest of the rug still was intact, to
my relief. I was grateful the concert hadn’t lasted 20 minutes longer.
But chewing rugs wasn’t Eden’s only problem. Whenever I went
to pet Willow, Eden would rush over and either nip at my hand or whack it with
her paw, so I would stop. I’d scold her and tell her to go lie down, but the
jealousy continued. She seemed determined to prevent me from touching Willow.
The shelter contacted me a few weeks after the adoption and
asked me how everything was going with Eden.
“To be honest, I don’t think this is going to work out,” I
told the woman. “I’m beginning to think I’m just too old to deal with all of
her issues.”
The woman asked me to elaborate, so I did – in great detail.
She then suggested I work with an animal behaviorist, and even offered to send
one over, free of charge. Eden, she told me, needed a “forever” home and
deserved happiness. She asked me to please not give up on her yet.
I remember thinking there wouldn’t be a “forever” home left
for Eden to live in if she continued to destroy it.
So I ended up talking to a behaviorist on the phone. The
first thing she asked me was, “When you’re about to leave the house, describe
exactly what you do.”
“Well,” I said, “I grab my purse, my car keys, and usually
the packages I have to mail at the post office. I sell a lot of stuff on eBay,
so I always seem to have packages to mail.”
“Ahhhh,” she said. “That’s part of the problem! Eden knows when you are leaving, and it
makes her anxious. When she sees you pick up your purse and your car keys,
you’re giving her a signal. From now on, just before you’re going to leave, let
her out into the yard. Then while she’s out, bring all of your things out to
the car. Then let her back inside, give her a treat, and while she’s busy
eating the treat, sneak out. And, if you have time, come back after a few
minutes, and then leave again. It will confuse her. And whatever you do, don’t
say goodbye or anything else to her. Just casually leave.”
So I took her advice and tried everything she said –
including a few of my own ideas, just for extra insurance. I scattered dog toys
and long-lasting chew treats all over the floor to keep Eden distracted. I even
went out to the woods and found four heavy flat rocks – and put one on each
corner of the living-room rug, so she couldn’t roll it back again…or chew off
the corners.
The strategy worked. I came home to find my house intact and
the dogs asleep.
I then told the behaviorist about Eden’s jealousy and how
she always tried to get my hand away from Willow whenever I petted her.
“And how do you react when Eden does that?” she asked.
“I scold her and tell her to go lie down.”
“Noooo! That’s
wrong!” she said. “Eden wants to distract you, to take your attention away from
Willow. She doesn’t care if you’re being nice to her or you’re scolding her.
All she cares about is you’re paying attention to her instead of Willow. You
have to ignore her, to let her know she can’t distract you.”
So once again, I followed her advice. By the end of the day, Eden no longer bothered
me when I petted Willow.
Now, I’m relieved to say I actually can leave the house for
a few hours at a time and not have to constantly worry about coming home to a
house that looks like an explosion in a yarn mill.
But just to be safe, I haven’t removed the heavy rocks from
the corners of the living-room rug. You might say they’ve become my newest
fashion statement.
Now all I have to do is buy some steel-toed slippers…because
stubbing my toes on those darned rocks is becoming pretty painful.
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