2 Jack Russell Littermates Of 7 Years Old

[Sylvie]

It has been a while now since I have started this thread.

I am glad to report that we did not have any fight since Christmas. We've had a big one when we went camping for 1 night at Christmas: too much excitement out there and Ares ended up with a cut on his ear, bleeding all night. Not much fun. But I have been working a fair bit with them since.

I contacted Jane Harper early in January and have been to obedience classes with Ares. I'll go with Apollo at the next session and I might go to do some agility classes every then and then.They are now a lot calmer at home, and they got a few more tricks in their "repertoire". We have blocked their access to the front yard so they don't fence bark at every passing dogs anymore and are a lot quieter during the day. I am working on their reactivity to other dogs a lot. I've read a few books on top of Jane advices (Control Unleashed, Click to Calm, BAT,...) I have been walking them separately and together, avoiding other dogs as much as I could, playing the Look At That game or crossing the road to keep some distance with other dogs. I get them on a long line in a park, training their recall and other tricks with more distraction and it works pretty well. I still would not trust them completely off leash, but they love playing around me and running and coming back and it's good fun.:)

The main problems we still have now are off leash, uncontrolled dogs. I have had a few close encounters now and every time it is exhausting.

Once we had a young very friendly Staffy kind of dog who ran free from his handler (a 15 yo boy!) with his lead still clipped to his collar and wanted to play with my boys. I was on one leg, keeping my barking guys behind me and trying to fend the staffy with my other foot.The young boy was looking at us, doing nothing, probably thinking it was hilarious (or really not knowing what to do). I asked him if he could catch his dog, and he started to run after him trying to catch him. Off they went, crossing the road, straight to the off leash, unfenced park. I was worried for them but relieved they went away. I saw him finally getting grab of the lead and we settled down and went back to our business. Then, all of the sudden, I saw them coming back at us, the dog leading the boy . I tried to go away from where they were supposed to go but they followed us until we had another close encounter with my boy starting growling and barking again. I asked the boy where he was going so I could go the other way, but he told me: "I don't know, I am just walking the dog!" . Poor boy he had no idea. I asked him if he could try to take him away from my dogs as they did not like that too much and he eventually went away.

The last one was a morning, after our walk I was opening the door to go back inside when my two disappeared behind me and I heard a scream. When I turned around, they were 4 dogs in a brawl: a big Husky, a young black dog and my two. One of mine had his mouse on the young black dog who was screaming. It was very scary. I managed somehow to get mine back inside and the other two just stayed there jumping and bouncing around, wanting to play with me. They have been no obvious damage, no blood, just a big scare. I was very lucky these two strange dogs were just playful and did not react to the attack of mine. I went to get the two leashes of my dogs to try and get these two guys back to their place ( I knew where they lived as they often barked at us when we walk past their place). Got them back there, all doors open, a little girl answering my call. The nana eventually get out of bed to take the dogs back. I took me all the morning to recover! The worst is that I saw the 2 escaped dogs bouncing around, crossing the main road, earlier while we were on the walk and I took a half hour detour to go home just to avoid any contact. There was no sign of them when we arrived home, even my dogs were very quiet sitting before going inside. I still don't know where they came from.

Well I guess that's part of being a dog owner. It is a lot harder job than I ever imagine it would be but I kind of enjoy trying to understand what's going on in their little fluffy head. And I fill a lot more confident with them now.

[Alkhe]

I was about to reply until I realised this was an old thread! I'm so glad you've got things under control a bit more, and good on you for taking on the 7 year olds. Unfortunately, the most problems most peopel seem to have are with other peoples' dogs..

I'm so tempted to show this thread to a family member and a family friend who have BOTH just bought littermate puppies in the last 3 months :doh but I guess the best thing is to just be there with info and help when problems arise.

[Sylvie]

I had a collegue just a few weeks ago who said he was about to get 2 littermate puppies for his daughter. I told him what I thought of it and that if he really wanted 2 dogs to try and get them at least 6 months appart. I am glad he just got 1 pup last week.:)