tl/dr 2 dogs of ours were given away. One was untrainable at least by us and the other went to a farm of people we knew because he was a herding dog and needed the exercise.
I mentioned this once recently. My family is filled with animal lovers. We all have pets and we all spoil them rotten but we’re also pretty good at requiring a reasonable level of cooperation from the quadrupedal roommates. In my lifetime, only one dog ever got taken to the pound. He was a beagal mix … well that what we assumed. He was stray. He was a beagle-shaped, biscuit-colored hell-hound. We (I was about 10 at the time) called him Cookie. He was sweet enough but the worst combination of stupid and stubborn that I’ve ever met in a dog.
Cookie was pretty spry and he liked to worm his way onto the dining room chairs and the twist around and get on the table. Then he would spread out like only a small dog can do, sunning his tummy and generally feeling pleased with himself. My Mom, who will put up with almost anything from a pet, went to war over this. He shed constantly. He broke dishes and knocked things over. He stank. He just was not suited to the role of centerpiece.
What he was suited for - was all out war. Mom scolded, yelled, spanked, spread newspapers, squirted, raised twelve kinds of hell - and when he didn’t listen she turned it all on us to keep the damned dog off the table. Nothing she did ever fazed him. When she turned on us, nothing we did could dissuade him either. Nothing. Of course, he was a small dog so we didn’t really get too physical with him. He snarled back a few time, but Mom, no mean snarler herself, wouldn’t be intimidated by a little open exchange of free speech. (My own approach at the time involved some half assed ideas about what would come to be called ‘the alpha roll’ and a Darth Vader-esque command voice. The latter is pretty effective, as it turns out. I could make him jump down but he’d be right back up as soon as I turned my back.)
It all came to head one day when Cookie decided that he wasn’t getting his message across so he took firmer steps. Right in the middle of the afternoon sunbathing time, he scrambled up on the table, took a great big dump, and then lay down next too it, so there’d be no confusion as to whose table this was and who was going to have the last word.
Unfortunately for Cookie, the “last words” were shouted by Mom while she was grabbing him by the neck, putting him in the car and driving him straight to the pound. He’s the only dog we’ve ever taken there. I’m not sure if Mom’s guilty about it. I don’t think so. A Line Was Crossed - possibly the only line we’ve ever need to establish. Like I said, we’re pretty good about civilizing our creatures (although we’ll put up a lot from a sick beast, like the time my dog Mac got colon problems - but that’s a different story.)
Was Cookie untrainable? Maybe modern clicker techniques might have worked on him, but I doubt it. He wasn’t mean. He just wanted what he wanted and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. With thirty more years of experience, if I had Cookie today, I’d probably pull the blind so that the sunlight didn’t shine on the table during the day and then try to make him a nice warm spot somewhere else. But that’s less “training” a dog and more like ‘negotiating’ - I wouldn’t care as long as we got results.
So I guess what I’m saying is, Cookie was untrainable by us, at that time. But it was almost certainly our fault for not finding a way to redirect his energies. He was the wrong dog for us and that was mostly our fault. He probably needed a farm and place to run and sunbathe probably. He was cute. I hope he found it. I still feel a little guilty about it all. But man was he a blockhead.
Oh - and we did send another dog of ours, Chester, to a farm. (Really, it was a real farm, friends of my aunt’s, and Chester was a herding dog who needed exercise.) He was very social. There was a bus stop near his farm and he would greet the passengers and even ride the bus sometimes. He was a great dog. I forget how we acquired him but he really did thrive on his farm.
