Banshee Is Back Home

[Christina]

Sometimes an animal is not meant to leave you. You don't have to do anything wrong & didn't. It's fate.

I delivered one of my cats to a lovely new home recently. She didn't do anything out of the ordinary for an adult re home cat

I kept thinking about her all the time & one of the other cats kept looking for her.

Had a call to go & get her back after 13 days. The lady said the cat didn't like her. Appeared so. She may have settled given more time but her cat friend was very glad to have her back & gave her a big wash all over.

I don't mind & would not try with this cat again. One fail & they are here to stay

[Her Majesty Dogmad]

The dog that was returned to us (after the alpha roll lady) did appear to have been traumatised but is a happy little guy. He is in foster care and the foster carer observed how scared he was at certain times, as if he'd been abused.

I would NEVER advocate an alpha roll but it was completely unnecessary and irrelevant in this case. It has done nothing but harm an innocent dog.

But, how to protect future rehomings against such people - the only way I could have forseen it is if I'd asked "by the way, do you do something called an alpha roll". It appears to be what you don't ask and what they don't tell you that gets you in strife.

No matter how thorough you are, you cannot possibly be ready for every single scenario that may crop up or imagine what a person's behaviour will be under certain circumstances - nor may they even know themselves. You can only ask reasonable and hopefully insightful questions AND know that things can still go wrong.

[Ons]

it' funny how these foster dogs have a way of telling us when they don't want to be somewhere I never really understood the extent of it until a couple of months ago when I had an enquiry for my foster dog. It was an absolutely perfect home for her and I told the people that in numerous lengthy phone calls. I also didn't hide any of her faults but she really didn't have many and whislt she was young she was a quiet girl, just wanted to be top dog but this was a home where she would be the only dog and that had had a cattle dog before. Well the people drove five hours to see her and must think I'm an absolute liar, I had never seen her display any of that behaviour before or indeed after and when they walked her she reacted to everything and pulled on her lead, stuff she hadn't done since the first few days she was with me and indeed when I took her for a walk the next day didn't do it either. She just didn't think that they were the right people for her and let me know.

Banshee just simply decided she wanted to be with Yellowgirl and Yellowgirl was kind enough and responsible enough to take her back.

I was told to do the alpha roll by some american friends. Never did, just seemed so wrong, and if I had my female golden retriever I'm sure would have been scarred for life.

[yellowgirl]

I just Googled "Alpha Roll" OMG - did people actually DO this?

It shocks me. It may work for some dogs, but I can imagine some dogs would be absolutely traumatised.

Jeune imagines the hounds of hell are on her tail if I ask her very softly, politely and calmly to sit :D :D .

Poor Jeune . My little Pepper is like that too.

The Alpha Roll is a Cesar Milan tecnique

It was around long before Cesar was born!

We were taught it in our first ever lesson at an obedience club back in 1987. I hated it (and certain other things about the club and the instructor) so much that I never went back for another class there.

The whole "domination" thing really didn't appeal to me then and still isn't "up there" on my list of favourites now for various reasons.

Wow! It was probably the new fad, no-fail training method around at the time :p . I'd never seen it until I saw the Cesar Milan video.

One of the catalysts for booting out the ex-husband was when he angrily alpha rolled my mini poodle. Idiot.

That's a shame that a family can accept a dog with issues, and then get all in a fuss over toilet training ffs.

No offence but they sound like idiots.

Well there's toileting and there's toileting...I'm happy enough to clean a firm turd off a polished board but my heart sinks if a dog pees on the carpet!!

Poops - yay, Wees- boo (well not 'yay' exactly but still better than a wee ;))

Sometimes an animal is not meant to leave you. You don't have to do anything wrong & didn't. It's fate.

I delivered one of my cats to a lovely new home recently. She didn't do anything out of the ordinary for an adult re home cat

I kept thinking about her all the time & one of the other cats kept looking for her.

Had a call to go & get her back after 13 days. The lady said the cat didn't like her. Appeared so. She may have settled given more time but her cat friend was very glad to have her back & gave her a big wash all over.

I don't mind & would not try with this cat again. One fail & they are here to stay

Aww, I can just imagine how happy the cat friends were to be reunited :p

I agree, one fail was enough for me and Banshee, she's here to stay ;)

The dog that was returned to us (after the alpha roll lady) did appear to have been traumatised but is a happy little guy. He is in foster care and the foster carer observed how scared he was at certain times, as if he'd been abused.

I would NEVER advocate an alpha roll but it was completely unnecessary and irrelevant in this case. It has done nothing but harm an innocent dog.

But, how to protect future rehomings against such people - the only way I could have forseen it is if I'd asked "by the way, do you do something called an alpha roll". It appears to be what you don't ask and what they don't tell you that gets you in strife.

No matter how thorough you are, you cannot possibly be ready for every single scenario that may crop up or imagine what a person's behaviour will be under certain circumstances - nor may they even know themselves. You can only ask reasonable and hopefully insightful questions AND know that things can still go wrong.

Yep, it's the dozens of questions you don't ask that can be the problem :p

it' funny how these foster dogs have a way of telling us when they don't want to be somewhere I never really understood the extent of it until a couple of months ago when I had an enquiry for my foster dog. It was an absolutely perfect home for her and I told the people that in numerous lengthy phone calls. I also didn't hide any of her faults but she really didn't have many and whislt she was young she was a quiet girl, just wanted to be top dog but this was a home where she would be the only dog and that had had a cattle dog before. Well the people drove five hours to see her and must think I'm an absolute liar, I had never seen her display any of that behaviour before or indeed after and when they walked her she reacted to everything and pulled on her lead, stuff she hadn't done since the first few days she was with me and indeed when I took her for a walk the next day didn't do it either. She just didn't think that they were the right people for her and let me know.

Banshee just simply decided she wanted to be with Yellowgirl and Yellowgirl was kind enough and responsible enough to take her back. :p

I was told to do the alpha roll by some american friends. Never did, just seemed so wrong, and if I had my female golden retriever I'm sure would have been scarred for life.

Sounds like your foster dog was a very smart girl ;)

I wish I knew what was going on in Banshee's mind. Maybe she thought she was having a bit of a holiday with people she really liked but a week was about all she was up for before wanting to come home again . If she wanted to come home, she'd naturally start to become unsettled. All I know is she's a smart little bugger and worked it so she got to come back . I won't be letting her go again

[Loving my Oldies]

All I know is she's a smart little bugger and worked it so she got to come back :p . I won't be letting her go again :p

We all have a laugh and feel warm and fuzzy when we hear those words following an "unsuccessful" rehoming, but most of us know that it isn't all beer and skittles, but at least the dog or cat is happy and that is that main thing. ;)

[yellowgirl]

Banshee's doing fantastically well back home . She's hardly bothering the other dogs at all, I catch her the millisecond before she thinks about jumping on Madeline with an 'uh uh' and tell her to get her toy. She's amusing herself much more now, going to get toys on her own and having a great time throwing them about without needing to play with the other dogs, particularly Madeline.

I've been trying to get to the park with them at least every second day, and I've been doing some training at home with Banshee to keep her mind busy. I enquired about a dog walker, but $35 an hour is a bit out of my budget, so I'll continue with what I'm doing at the moment. They all seem to be mingling very happily together, we've had no nonsense or major disagreements so far. It's almost as if - dare I say it - they missed Banshee! and are glad to have her back

[Loving my Oldies]

Absolutely great news, Yellowgirl. It is to be said that even when there are disagreements from time to time, dogs seem to get used to "how things are", so maybe it is not so much missing her as being pleased that the status quo has been restored.

In the last couple of days, I have observed Tamar trying to urge Myrtie to play. Beforehand, Myrtie used to pick pick pick on Tamar, stop her when she came running to me, blocking her and things like that, but in spite of this, Tamar the Timid seems to becoming much livelier and wanting to play with Myrtie.

Who knows . So long as they are happy

[yellowgirl]

Awww, how sweet that Tamar seems to be coming out of her shell to initiate playing . Yep, Banshee's a bit of a stopper and blocker too, but she's getting way better. I think she's becoming more sure of her place in the crew and with me and is getting the hang of not having to grab all the attention for herself.

I hope Tamar and Myrtie become play pals soon