A Story of Senna

This is Senna, our other resident doggie, relatively new and belonging to my younger brother.

I never thought I would get a new pet in the house with Scooby and his issues being fixed. He’s still been iffy with other dogs (mostly the males) going from totally friendly to dominant and grouchy. I can only get him to behave during our walks, thought only because he knows he must ignore them. We have two hands full of dog friends (calm, healthy, balanced other dogs) but unfortunately most other canines around us do not do well with most other dogs either. I have been trying to get him socialized with as many other dogs as possible but it seems he has a grudge against males in general (save for a couple). I’ve been pretty much satisfied with this roadblock and, while we’re slowly moving around it, there is a long way to go.

My younger brother has been in want of his ‘own’ pet for a long time now and he’s proved that he’s capable of handling it. He loves dogs as much as I, but since Scooby is, although affectionate, a very one-owner dog he hasn’t been able to get much satisfaction from helping out with him.

We thought of getting another dog, female (of course), and thought of it well into November of last year. We ruled out small breeds and puppies on account of my general clumsiness (we wouldn’t want a doggy stepped upon!) and the fact that most breeds at the shelter were large (and needed help!). It was a good day over there, though, and most of the dogs were pending adopter approval or waiting for their owners to come pick them up. The remainder were unfortunately male (save for one, very frustrated female chihuahua). We looked through cats as well (though they were a big no-no, Scooby had killed an unlucky feral one before).

I went to my local classifieds and put up a wanted ad, prepared and given a nice wait. Meanwhile I checked the rescues continuously, frustrated with the fact that most that had what we wanted were too far away or otherwise unreachable. I was answered by a few people from the classified, but they were all not to our needing. Toward the end of the year, we had all tossed the idea for the most part. I was sent an e-mail response to my ad and prepared to decline and go about the rest of my year in peace.

I was not endeared to the black fluff ball in the pictures right away. My brother (call him Nel) was excited, however, and was bouncing with excitement. When we drove over, it was initially only to take a look at her. The woman who’d had her was a foster parent for several children, some of whom were afraid of the larger dog—which forced her to be outside often when they were there, the dog however, was an escape artist. She’d dig under fences and squeeze through gate spaces. She was frightened of fireworks as well. Otherwise, she was house-trained and obedience trained (mostly) and a well-rounded, nice, and intelligent dog.

Nel loved her. We took her home. Together, we went through the process of the important first introduction. I got Scooby’s leash and we went on a family walk, with our new member two bodies away from the Terrier-ist as we made our way to the park. There they allowed to sniff and play in the safe neutral territory, where he, thankfully, behaved as he would with any of his friends, romping and playing about with ease. I walked them until they were both panting and happy, then brought them home.

Our resident seemed to have accepted his new buddy until the moment we walked through the gate. Senna seemed already a very submissive girl. She still behaved as though we were playing some big game, darting about with the most harmless of body language. What worried me was Scooby’s repeated dominant body language, which I had to snap him out of (with a vocal reprimand) often before a stare-down erupted and some unfortunate event after that. We left them alone for less than a minute and he’d already started a snap battle (what I call those fights that aren’t fights in which there’s more glaring and growling than actual physical contact).
were separated immediately. It took a lot of patience before we could all get along. We couldn’t leave them unsupervised at first and I started serving meals in their crates (she was  already crate-trained). Just in-case, we all reviewed the proper way to stop a dog fight (usually without getting hurt).

!-This is to have two people each get a-hold of the two dogs’ hind legs and pull them apart while turning in a clockwise circle (to avoid the snapping teeth).

Thankfully, we never had to resort to that. After about five days he seemed to drop his nasty behavior and they took over my couch as one unit. It also helped that I had them working together (learning simple group tasks like pulling  the cord on the screen door to open it), walking together, and of course, taking trips to the park to play. Senna did escape her first weekend home, which scared the living daylights out of everyone, but that’s a story for another day!

In the mean time the Terrier-ist has been putting up with his new sister quite well. Although she’s getting a lot of attention.