As a favor to a friend, my family has been taking care of two miniature dachsunds since Thursday night. But these dogs are the spawn of Cerberus! They pick fights with all our other animals (a German Shepherd, a Labrador Retriever, and a tabby cat), and we can’t sleep at night because of their incessant barking.
I hate what their behavior is doing to our own pets. They’ve barked and pawed at Dita, the GS, til she has taken to hiding under a desk. The Labrador refuses to come inside, opting instead to spend her days outside in the heat. The cat, who’s bigger than they are and capable of filetting them for her Salmon Banquet, is now in hiding and we don’t expect to find her again soon.
My plea is this: do ANY of you have any tips, hints, or other advice that might help us survive this canine siege?
I would keep them in a seperate room for the duration of the visit. You can just block off the doorway to the kitchen for example. Then they can still kind of see whats going on but can’t terrorize your pets.
I’m going through the same thing. I’m keeping two dogs for a friend while their house is in escrow. It was bad enough when the one moron dog began barking under my window at dawn. Argh! Drove me insane, but my friend wasn’t willing to do anything else about that. Apparently she doesn’t like her dogs enough to spend money on them to kennel them. (They are all outside dogs.)
But when these dogs started fighting with my dogs, and blood was spilled twice, I put my foot down. They had to go! My friend then went and bought a kennel and set it up in my backyard, so I could isolate the dog that was fighting. OK, I guess I can live with that, but the other dog is excavating a giant hole under my patio. :rolleyes:
I think my point was isolation was our solution. It’s not perfect. They still bark. I can’t stand them. It’s putting a strain on my friendship. I will do a happy dance when they are gone, and my landlord has said no more dog sitting, so I’m off the hook.
That’s exactly how I feel, bowert. David’s been my friend since we were in fifth grade, but these hellraisers are not setting paw in here again.
I only wish I COULD put them outside to isolate them from the others, but these two knuckleheads aren’t housetrained. The house is the piss epicenter of Virginia Beach. We open the backdoor and they just stare at us, and when we pick them up and set them on the grass, they just run to the door.
I tried ArtyDooDoo’s suggestion, but when put in a room by themselves, they bark, cry, whine, and carry on until we can’t stand it anymore and let them out. My brother tried staying in the room with them, but they still had a fit.
Monday seems soooo far away!
SUPERKARLENE, is there no possibility of kenneling these dogs? It sounds like a short-term care situation, and it really won’t hurt the dogs to be in a boarding kennel for a weekend.
My “guests” drive me crazy enough that I would pay the boarding fee if it were just for a few days, although I know my friend can afford it. I’m pretty resentful of her dumping her problem dogs on me, although I’ve had to rely on friends to watch mine now and then too. Mine don’t bark!
Julie
I just had the last straw: one of them pissed on me! She was sitting on my lap when with no warning she let loose a high-pressure stream that’d put my garden hose to shame.
RAGE! OWNER RAGE!
No bowert, absolutely no possibility of kenneling these pissing machines. My poor pants…
Ugh, that would definitely strain a friendship! I would have a seriously difficult time not presenting the owner with a carpet/pants cleaning bill when he gets back.
You don’t have a garage to crate them in, do you?
Sorry, you have all of my sympathy!
Why can’t you keep them outside? No fence or something?
I can sympthasize. I’ve got two standard sized Dacshunds and while they’re sweet to people, they’re terrors around any other dog. I can’t take them anywhere without them trying to pick a fight. It’s embarassing.
bowert, the carpet doesn’t bother me, since I’m fully loaded with Resolve, and the pants were just old lay-around-the-house pants. But the principle of the thing! I didn’t plan on getting pissed on til I was a mother, for cripe’s sake.
Though we do have a garage, it’s not air conditioned and it’s full of junk. Putting them out there would probably be dangerous.
Ray, our backyard is huge. Almost an acre, I think. But whenever we put them out there, they end up running back to the door. Though Sugar and Coco ARE sweet to all my family (except for the Pissing Incident), they’re a terror to other animals.
I hope David finds Alabama really unappealing and comes home soon.
Why don’t you just shut them out then? I mean surely you could close the door before they could get back in.