Throughout my dog training career and travels, I am often asked the same question, “Should you re-home your dog?”
This question is usually accompanied by lots of tears, stress, anxiety and even guilt. But, without a doubt, a dog that bites, potties in the house and eats your couch is no fun to live with and upsets the entire household.
So, what should you do?
I do not believe anybody gets a dog expecting it to not work out. Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, humans make impulsive choices when overcome with heart-tugging cuteness and those sad puppy eyes! But, once the reality of daily life with the new dog sets in, things sometimes go awry and not according to plan.
When It’s Not a Good Fit
Problems begin to emerge, or people realize how much work it takes to produce a confident, well-behaved adult dog. In addition, there is also the stigma of human “failure” when we are confronted with situations we do not know how to fix. This stigma will push many people to continue to live with dogs that bite, are aggressive or even potentially dangerous. This is a recipe for disaster!
Sometimes, through no fault of the human or dog, it just ends up not being a good fit. So, what should you do?
Put Your Emotions Aside for Your Dog
Humans are very emotional when it comes to the dogs we live with. We feel “responsible” and that we “owe the dog” every chance to make it work. While this is an admirable intention, it can often get distorted in the overwhelming human emotions of what we “should” do.
While humans can change and adjust their physical environments to suit their ongoing needs, canines do not have this same luxury. They are completely dependent on their humans to provide their daily environment, needs and routines. So, humans bear the full responsibility to be honest about whether the environment is suitable for the dog to thrive – WITHOUT succumbing to human emotion. What does “quality of life” look like for the dog, through the dog’s perspective?
Life Through Your Dog’s Eyes
Human environments and lifestyles greatly affect your dog’s behavior. They are his whole world!
I recently had personal experience with this very situation. Early in the pandemic, my son and I brought home TWO puppies. My son adopted Tread, a 4-month-old husky, pitbull mix. He had been hit by a car and was in a cast and cone for the first two months we had him. The other pup was a 5-week-old heeler mix.
Tread was a very trainable dog. He had great obedience skills and a friendly temperament with people and the dogs in our pack. Our environment, on the other hand, was a problem for him. We have a rotating door of clients and dogs that come and go with our boarding and daycare business. This created an incredibly stressful situation for Tread because he simply did not like these other dogs coming into his space. It wasn’t anybody’s “fault” or even a defect on Tread’s part. It’s just the way that it was.
Putting it simply, our environment, was just too overstimulating for Tread. He was a FABULOUS dog when it was just us and the original pack. But when dogs came in for our in-home boarding, Tread would turn his predatory behavior on the younger heeler pup, try his best to get into the business area of the house and would bark and snarl at the boarding dogs. In other words, it brought out the worst in him.
Tread was “my son’s” dog. So, as you can imagine, there was emotion involved in this situation; and lots of it! It did not matter that I am a dog trainer, his heart belonged to this dog. Early on, I knew what needed to happen. I knew Tread would thrive best in a home as an only dog, due to his predation with arousal. As soon as Tread began to size up my fence, I knew he needed a strong leader who would take him out into the world hiking and camping. I knew, but again, my son was extremely attached to this K9. I was torn and started to feel like I had failed this pup as a dog trainer.
Finally, my son and I were able to sit down and put our emotions aside and ask the hard questions:
- What kind of quality of life does Tread have in our home?
- Is he a happy dog here?
Tread was not happy in this environment even though we provided him with lots of love and a good life. His actual “quality of life” was not ideal simply because he was not happy. Although it was extremely difficult, together we decided to rehome him. We found a wonderful family with two older girls who were active and did not have other dogs or animals. Tread was the perfect fit for them and began to thrive in their home.
Honesty vs Emotions
It is our job to always be honest with our clients (and ourselves). I have learned to never hesitate to recommend a dog be rehomed when I strongly feel that it is in the best interests of the dog. Even though it can be a heartbreaking choice, as our dog’s guardians, we are responsible for their overall well-being while in our care.
We should always be able to positively answer these simple questions, “does this dog have the best “quality of life” and are they “happy” where they are?”
And the answers should always be a resounding YES!
Do you need help with a newly adopted dog or puppy?
We can help!
We Create Happy and Well-Mannered Dogs!
East Valley K9 Services help make,
confident dogs, even yours!
From Leadership and obedience training to
Puppy Socialization Classes and Therapy Dog Prep Classes or even our Walkabout Adventure,
East Valley K9 Services can help!
Call 480-382-0144 or send us an email.
Serving Chandler, Gilbert, Tempe and East Valley areas of Arizona.
Additional Reading:
Whole Dog Journal: Dog Rehoming: When Is It the Right Decision?
Rescue Dogs 101: Is it Ever Okay to Rehome a Dog?
Petfinder.com: Dog Rehoming
Image Credits (Shown in Order of Appearance):
(Picture of Tread)
Public Domain Pictures from Pixabay
Courtesy: East Valley K9 Services
