What Would You Do?

[FHRP]

As always, "it depends" Over what period of time have you tried to bond with the dog, and is it just a matter of not a bond or do you dislike the dog? It took me quite a few years to bond with my now 8.5 year old dog. Now we have a very good bond, but he's not my 'heart' dog. There was never any chance that I would rehome him, neither of us were 'unhappy'. However I have seen dogs in homes where the bond isn't there and the owner doesn't really appear to like the dog, IMO rehoming the dog to a more suitalble home would be a better option in those cases.

I don't like the idea of moving on a difficult dog to make room for another though. Especially if it's health or behviour problems that you'd expect others to deal with. My 'difficult' dog who is noisy, demanding and the best food thief you'll ever know is one dog I have the greatest bond with, no matter how much he gives me the sh*ts at times!! He ain't going anywhere, I wouldn't inflict him on others

[Vickie]

I have never bonded with Noah. He is 13 now. I don't think he has had a crappy life, but I know he would have been happier & more suited to a different one. A number of people I respect told me to return him after a month of having him, but as usual, I was determined, pigheaded that I am, to make it work. And I did & learnt a he'll of a lot in the process.

In hindsight, I wish I had rehomed him. It has only been in the last couple of years we have started to get along better.

If I ever get another dog in the future that I just can't bond with, I will rehome & get one I can bond with. I am not saying I would not put work into a dog that needs it, that is different.

Edited November 26, 2010 by Vickie

[CaseyKay]

I never bonded with my oldest girl Maddie (border collie) now 10 years old. She was always very aloof and independant. I did consider rehoming her in the first year, because some of the time I actively disliked her. I started competing with her in obedience and she was pretty good. We have always been like collegues, we work together very well. When she was 18 months I was so lonely for a dog, I got my next border collie KC and I just adored her from day one and still do, she is my heart. I also now have Gael, 14 months border collie who I am besotted with and also training for agility and tracking. Both KC and Gael love to be with me and are both happy cuddly dogs. Right now both are at my feet snoozing. I don't know where Maddie is.

Maddie has done well in obedience, agility, tracking, farm work and lately Rally-O. She has been a very good tracking dog in particular. If we are at home and inside, she is outside by herself, she rarely comes inside unless told to. She isn't any trouble. She is very well behaved, extremely obedient and has no bad habits. If she did have annoying destructive habits maybe I would have rehomed her early on, but yeah, she is just kind of "there". What I really don't get is of my 3 current dogs she is the one that everyone else just seems to love. I know now to avoid that kind of independant puppy. I said she spends most of her time alone outside, well yesterday I decided to do some gardening and KC and Gael and my 2 cats were hanging out with me. Realised I hadn't seen Maddie for a while and she had actually gone INside and was sleeping down the far end of the house :D After all this time I still felt rejected.

Do I think people should keep dogs they don't bond with? No. There may be another home for them that is perfect.

[Chezy]

I got mully from the pound , she was a older dog 10 approx and we never really bonded . Had I found a good home for her I would have rehomed her, but she seemed happy enough with us here and lived the last of her life well and happy . I would only have let her go to the right home , turned down 2 ppl as i thought was not right and wanted her only to get better than her life with me .was prob too fussy :D

Edited November 27, 2010 by Chezy & Chopper

[Rysup]

I have returned a puppy that came from a fellow breeder. He and I never bonded and I just could not get my head around it, so we send him back.

[kyliestar]

you can't force yourself to bond with a dog just like you can't force a friendship with a human. i can relate to terrible thoughts about the possibility of rehoming or putting a dog to sleep. when i got my dog i was young and stupid, i'd never really had the responsibility of a dog.. when i was in highschool my parents got a dog but she was little and annoying, she spent all her time in the backyard and we didnt pay her much attention. then i moved out and a puppy was offered to me. he was a 3 month old american staffy, little did i realise how much trouble they can be! i did like him, but he was ridiculously boisterous and i had no experience with proper training besides the usual "sit" "stay". i was going through a bit of a rough patch in life and i didnt spend the time with him that i now know i needed to. As he grew he started trying to dominate the other dog and she wasn't having any of it, they were best of friends when they were by themselves, but if myself or the other owner walked out, they'd fight. i don't think he wanted to kill her because he never went for the throat and neither dog was never really injured and he was big enough by then that he could have seriously injured her if he'd wanted to. i called in a behaviorist and trainer who said he was fixable, went along to their training session and within a few minutes the trainer had made him sit quietly without trying to attack. unfortunately the other people in the class didnt want him there so we were kicked out. i thought of the option of having him PTS many times when he was young, but i felt like it was my fault he was the way he was and i would do everything to help him.

i sorted myself out and moved out with my boyfriend, we wanted him as an inside dog as he no longer had a playmate.. this meant that we had to seriously start training him. he learnt things really quickly,i taught him hand signs because he responded better to those. he was still super hypo, especially when we first let him in. he'd run full pelt around the loungeroom and he'd lick and jump, especially at new people. he was destructive during the day when he was outside too, chewing and digging. then the owner of our house found out we had a dog, we hadn't wrote it on our application and she happened to live behind us. By this stage i'd started to really feel a bond with him, the thought of having him put to sleep made me feel sick, i couldnt rehome him because i didnt trust anyone with him, i couldnt live with the stress of the possibility of him getting out and attacking another dog if the people who took him weren't as careful at ensuring he couldnt escape the yard. long story short we were taken to court and we won, i had my doctor explain that i needed him to help with my anxiety.

we moved again into a house with a few friends, he cried whenever he was outside and our neighbours complained so we had him in whenever we were home. This actually calmed him down, i used Cesar Millan's methods to help calm him down when people walked through the door. amazingly he calmed down so much and has continued to improve over the past year and a half. in this time i really bonded with him, as did everyone who met him. he was the center of attention and people commented on how well behaved he was. unfortunately his dog aggression issues are still unresolved. I've hired trainers who initially work, but we can't seem to replicate the methods in the same way and it does nothing.

sometimes i still think it would be easier if i had him PTS but it would tear me apart, he is my best friend. he is the one thing that can cheer me up when i'm down and he is always excited to see me when i get home. he loves humans unconditionally and he's really gentle and tolerant of small children, but when he see's another dog i dont even recognise him. it is really hard though, everyday i stress that i'll get home and find the gate open and he'll have got out and hurt another dog, but i can't bring myself to have him PTS because i love him more than life itself.

i hope this isn't a bad first impression of myself, i blame myself 100% for his problems not being addressed properly as a puppy and i regret it everyday.

[fainty_girl]

I didn't find it easy to bond with Jessie (my stumpy tail cattle dog X). She was meant to be "my" dog, but she chose my mum on the car ride home (my mum and I swapped seats in the car because I was so sick of Jessie standing on me), so I only have myself to blame :D . Plus I didn't know that cattle dogs are 'one person dogs', so another mistake on my part. To be honest I have always found Jessie to be pretty frustrating too... That being said, she is very content and has a great life here - she has an extremely close bond with my mum and Jessie is part of our family, even if she is a bit nutty!

When we just had Jessie I always felt like something was missing and desperately wanted a second dog, so after 4 years of begging we finally adopted a second dog, Tilly. My mum didn't come in the car that time, and I also made sure that I did things like took Tilly on her first walk, etc. She is my girl, but she is also very friendly with everyone in my family and is much more of a family dog than Jessie is. I am super protective of Tilly and bonded with her quickly!

[Monah]

I have the opposite problem. I bond with everything and it can take only minutes. then I worry about the animal , bird, wildlife etc. I have had around 5 pets that I have had an incredible connection with, too much really :D

I bond with all the animals on we see on our walks, friends pets, everything. I dont need an animal to ''bond' with me to feel a special love and attachment to it. One of our cats LOVES the kids far more than me, and I am completely and utterly devoted to her :D

People, not so much...

[FionaC]

I have the opposite problem. I bond with everything and it can take only minutes. then I worry about the animal , bird, wildlife etc. I have had around 5 pets that I have had an incredible connection with, too much really

I bond with all the animals on we see on our walks, friends pets, everything. I dont need an animal to ''bond' with me to feel a special love and attachment to it. One of our cats LOVES the kids far more than me, and I am completely and utterly devoted to her :D

People, not so much...

heck you even bond with photos of animals Monah! - although I was about 10 minutes off shipping Talin to you this morning :D

[Kaffy Magee]

I took on a 6 motnh old pup not long after losing my 16month old, my heart dog, to cancer. I had just started a new job and I also had 2 young pups that I had kept from the litter I had at the time. I didnt have time to grieve properly and took this boy on thinking I was ready. I was very wrong. We couldnt bond. And I dont know whether its just cos I still missed my older boy so much, but this dog seemed to be the devils spawn, sent to bring me down. He barked when confined in a run, dog trailer, crate (except at shows, he was angel then). Unfortunately living on property, with neighbouring sheep, he couldnt just have run of the place when I couldnt supervise, so he had a run, for during the day and a crate for inside at night. I bought a bark collar, he barked through it. He wrecked my wire crate, bent it all out of shape, and ripped the aluminum strips of the inside of my trailer and bent it all up. He wrecked every coat I bought him, to keep him warm through winter. He hated my cats and wanted to kill them. He hadnt had as much socialisation when I got him as I had given my previous boy from 8 weeks and was not as confident and as outgoing when I took him anywhere else other than dog shows.None of this made it easy to bond with him. I persisted for 12 months, we did lots of training, he was super smart and loved to work, but it just became apparent it wasnt working. I also wasnt happy with how he was turning out for the show ring. So, I rehomed him to a wonderful lady who had another of his breed. She regularly takes him biking and competes in obedience trials with him, and he is doing really well. He is on a normal house block, so no need for dog runs or crates and no longer barks. So after writing all that, yes I would rehome a dog I didnt bond with. Its no good just existing together, when you both could be so much happier.

I also recently rehomed one of my pups from my recent litters that I was running on until I found a home for her. She was 6 months old. I never planned to keep a girl and was always going to place her in a home but everyone told me I was crazy for rehoming her as she was a stunning bitch, so I seriously considered keeping her but then I decided it wasnt fair on her when I didnt have that connection with her as I do with her brother Chase. My dogs might be show/breeding dogs but they are also my pets, that spend time with us in the house and go on outings with us. They are not kenneled dogs(not that I have anything wrong with that, providing they are provided for) just for breeding and showing where you dont need to have that connection. As family pets, you need to have a bond imo, to get the best out of the relationship.

[Monah]

I have the opposite problem. I bond with everything and it can take only minutes. then I worry about the animal , bird, wildlife etc. I have had around 5 pets that I have had an incredible connection with, too much really

I bond with all the animals on we see on our walks, friends pets, everything. I dont need an animal to ''bond' with me to feel a special love and attachment to it. One of our cats LOVES the kids far more than me, and I am completely and utterly devoted to her :D

People, not so much...

heck you even bond with photos of animals Monah! - although I was about 10 minutes off shipping Talin to you this morning

Tragic isn't it? It makes life difficult sometimes

Ship him here, I'm ready :D xxx

[huski]

Like others have said it would depend on what you meant by 'bond'. I don't think I could live with a dog that was a totally wrong fit for me to the point where I was miserable all the time and so was the dog, because I couldn't provide them with what they needed.

It took me a long time to bond with Daisy because she was a real challenge and PITA from the day I bought her home at eight weeks. I felt like I was constantly fighting her, working against her instead of with her. I put a lot of work in to build a better relationship with her and it's improved so much sometimes I forget how hard it used to be. People who knew us 'before' comment on what a different dog she is now. However, I still don't feel like we are quite there yet and I think there is definitely still room for improvement.

Edited November 27, 2010 by huski

[Guest Clover]

This is a hard one for me because i am a 'once the arrive they are here for life' type of person. But i guess if i was having serious personality clashes with an animal and the animal was rehomeable i would look for a more suited owner. It has taken me 5 years to be able to handle Tinny's full on personality, but i bonded to her strait away. So even though she sometimes drives me nuts i do adore her and she me .

[BigPaws]

I didn't feel a bond with one of my dogs until she was almost 2 years old. I'm glad I stuck with her though, because now we have an unbreakable bond and I don't think she would have bonded with anyone else any better than she did with me.

[KitKat]

It's not something i'm seriously considering at the moment - i know i haven't got as good a bond with one of my dogs because one i could not part with at all, with the other - if the perfect home came smooching him i'd probably give him up - so in saying that i don't believe i'm necessarily the 'perfect' home for him. But after 6yrs i'm used to him, he's a real sweetheart - i picked him as a 3day old pup, and was pig headed enough to stick with him...even tho i had reservations before he was 8weeks old.

ETA - the 'other' dog isn't walking perfection either, but i connected with him at first sight - he's being rehomed elsewhere at this point, but i'm tempted to put my name down for if he is ever returned, for whatever reason.

Edited November 27, 2010 by KitKat

[Crazy Daisy]

My last rescue I couldn't bond with. I tried everything, obedience, one on one time with me, long bush walks together, buying him lots of toys to try and find one he was interested in playing with with me....but nothing worked. In the 18 months we had him he only let me cuddle him once and I sat for over an hour scared to move knowing this was a once off. After the heart breaking decision to find him a new home we found the perfect couple and as soon as they met him he ran up and licked the guys face and let him put his arms around him. I felt rejected and like I had failed him that night but the next morning I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. He had found his true home and I was just someone who looked after him for a while.

[KitKat]

I'm curious to hear more from the person who stated they would PTS the dog? Not to have a go at, just to hear more as to why/how you would come to that decision?

[mr.mister]

Our second dog, I didn't bond with. We tried for a few months to see if it could be rectified but nope, and it was creating a lot of tension in the household. We rehomed him and he just 'clicked' with his new owner. He hangs off her every word and action and it is lovely to see.

[Earthdog]

I had a Border Collie who just wasn't the right dog for me. He was a beautiful dog, we just didn't click. I rehomed him to a family with a teenage boy and it was a match made in heaven.

[poochmad]

I would rehome it. I don't think it's fair on the dog to be in an environment where it's not going to be loved and comfortable. I need to really bond with my dogs and there has only been one dog in the past when I was a teenager that I couldn't bond to and she was rehomed to a young girl who thought the dog was fantastic. I guess it just goes to show that different personalities of dogs suit different people.

Take for example the little rescue dog that I have on my lap (looking after him for a friend). He is an incredible little dog, quiet, sweet natured, cuddly, easy to train and yet ended up in the pound, unkempt, riddled with fleas, coat matted, etc; it blows me away how such an adorable being found himself without a home.