momay
Well-known member
Hi all!
It's been a few years since I've posted to this forum. When Sofee Marie was a pup I used so much information from this forum, it was wonderful.
I'm back with a behavioral question.
My Tri Cav is now 9 years old (on meds for Mitral Valve and SM since 8 years old) has started to react badly to her dog walker. She has never been 'in love' with her but on the whole as willingly gone with every day for a walk or to day care at her house for the past 8.5 years. This past week and also there was incident this past winter where she will snarl and growl and try to nip her when she tries to get her out of her crate for a walk/day care visit. Normally a treat to draw her out will work and she will willingly go, but not today or yesterday.
When I am with her or my husband she is perfectly fine, walking great, no problems getting her out of the crate, eating fine, etc. When this happened before, I handled it by having her out of the crate with her leash on when the dog walker came to the door and I handed her over and out she went, no problem, but I am not home every morning to do this, in fact it is only once a while that I am home when she comes. (obviously as I would do the walk myself if I was home) So, the dog walker needs to be able to do this on her own. After we did this for a day or two, Sofee 'recovered' and did go with each day forward.
My thoughts are she is getting older, and certainly she has a mind of her own, she has been known to be pretty stubborn, unless it's with people she really loves, like myself, my sister, husband and a niece. But, she hasn’t reacted with the snarling and growling like she did today and earlier this year.
The reality is, she could care less about going outside in the middle of the day and I don't feel it is necessary for us to continue with the walker, but my husband feels like we shouldn't 'give in' to her and we should continue to do this to keep her socialized, even though she has never played with another dog in her entire life (typical Cavalier!!). We just didn’t want her stubborn side to ‘take over’.
Any opinions or thoughts? It's almost as if she is 'fed up' and doesn't want to do this anymore....... but there are situations where we need to have someone come in if we are going to out of the house for long periods of time.
Thank you!
Momay and Sofee Marie
It's been a few years since I've posted to this forum. When Sofee Marie was a pup I used so much information from this forum, it was wonderful.
I'm back with a behavioral question.
My Tri Cav is now 9 years old (on meds for Mitral Valve and SM since 8 years old) has started to react badly to her dog walker. She has never been 'in love' with her but on the whole as willingly gone with every day for a walk or to day care at her house for the past 8.5 years. This past week and also there was incident this past winter where she will snarl and growl and try to nip her when she tries to get her out of her crate for a walk/day care visit. Normally a treat to draw her out will work and she will willingly go, but not today or yesterday.
When I am with her or my husband she is perfectly fine, walking great, no problems getting her out of the crate, eating fine, etc. When this happened before, I handled it by having her out of the crate with her leash on when the dog walker came to the door and I handed her over and out she went, no problem, but I am not home every morning to do this, in fact it is only once a while that I am home when she comes. (obviously as I would do the walk myself if I was home) So, the dog walker needs to be able to do this on her own. After we did this for a day or two, Sofee 'recovered' and did go with each day forward.
My thoughts are she is getting older, and certainly she has a mind of her own, she has been known to be pretty stubborn, unless it's with people she really loves, like myself, my sister, husband and a niece. But, she hasn’t reacted with the snarling and growling like she did today and earlier this year.
The reality is, she could care less about going outside in the middle of the day and I don't feel it is necessary for us to continue with the walker, but my husband feels like we shouldn't 'give in' to her and we should continue to do this to keep her socialized, even though she has never played with another dog in her entire life (typical Cavalier!!). We just didn’t want her stubborn side to ‘take over’.
Any opinions or thoughts? It's almost as if she is 'fed up' and doesn't want to do this anymore....... but there are situations where we need to have someone come in if we are going to out of the house for long periods of time.
Thank you!
Momay and Sofee Marie