It’s weird having a used dog. You don’t know what other people have done with it and what it expects of you, but you can tell that whatever it is, what you’re doing ain’t it. Captain does a lot of things we don’t understand, and we try different responses and he gives us this “my god you people are such fucking morons” look. Like, he likes to put his paws on you, and then he looks at you. You shake it, you get “fucking moron”. You stroke it, you get “fucking moron”. You play this little piggy, you get a really offended “fucking moron”. You just hold it and he starts twitching. What do you want, dog? We love you but we do not live up to your expectations!
We kind of thought he didn’t know how to play - he likes to carry around things like tennis balls, and sometimes he deposits them in your lap all slobbery, but if you try throwing them for him to fetch you get The Look, or rolling them for him to fetch, or anything I’ve ever seen a dog do with a ball. He does the same thing with his rope (he doesn’t want to tug of war with it) and with his Kong. He is too dumb to get the treat out of the Kong, but he loves chasing it around, and dropping it into your lap all nasty.
I finally figured it out! He doesn’t want you to throw the ball so he can fetch it, he wants you to throw it at him so he can catch it in his mouth! He gave us a “FINALLY!” look. And now he won’t stop doing it.
We need to go buy a Frisbee, I think. Never had a Frisbee dog!
It took us weeks to learn that he’d shake hands, because he doesn’t do it to “Paw?” or “Shake!” or anything else we tried. It’s “Hello!” and my dad doesn’t say it right, so he won’t do it for him. We recently figured that he does “Up!” also.
We keep hoping his previous family had some crazy-ass command for “Heel”, but so far, not so much.
ETA - we also didn’t know until I let him go in my parents’ really big backyard (ours is much smaller) that he is FAST! Holy crap, he bounds like a jackrabbit! He came this freaking close to catching a squirrel! No wonder I can’t run with him - he doesn’t understand why we’re going so slow.
When we adopted Zoe from a shelter, it took a few accidents to figure out when she needs to go out. She doesn’t go to the door to the yard, or try to get your attention or anything. She’ll walk a few steps to the doorway of whatever room you happen to be in, then turn around and walk back toward you, then a few steps back to the door, then a few steps back to you. If you haven’t gotten up to let her out by the 4th or 5th time she’s done that, she pees on the floor.
The first time she did that, we were like “What is she doing? Is she dancing?” Then she peed on the floor. The second time she did that we were like “She’s doing that weird thing again! What is she doing? Wait, last time she did that …” and she peed on the floor again. After that we figured it out.
If you abandon a dog to a shelter, do they ask you what commands it knows? It certainly would be nice if they were able to pass that information along to whoever adopts it.
We’ve got a used cat, and he has Issues. Boy, does he have Issues. He loves getting petted and scritched and being thumped soundly all over his body. He DOES NOT want to be picked up, or even held close when he gets into bed with me. His ears and whiskers go flat against his body, and he attempts to take off. I’ve managed to convince him that I’m not going to hurt him if I pick him up, but he still doesn’t like it at all. Every now and then I pick him up, hug him, tell him that he’s a good kitty, and then put him down again. I do this so that I CAN pick him up if I need to.
My brother had a trio of retired Greyhounds. They all had to learn that they were pets now, and not working dogs. They were accustomed to being confined, with little human contact, and what contact they did get was simply to train them. They had to learn to live in a house. They learned that if they came up to one of their new humans, they were very likely to get petted and rubbed and generally loved on. This was completely alien to their previous life, but somehow, they adjusted to being beloved companions.
You adopted the catahoula, right? Mine is freaky fast - she’s the second fastest dog at the dog park (there’s a greyhound that’s a regular there - and her owners LOVE it when Tilly’s there, because no one else can keep up and she gets bored).
Hasn’t had the chance - there aren’t any inside the fence. I have no doubt he could give a greyhound a run for its money. I have never, ever seen a dog this fast.
Heh. My friends’ dog is fast, too, but doesn’t want to run; she wants to CHASE! If there are other dogs running, she’s in heaven. If not, she’ll just kinda sniff around.
My friends for a while fostered their neighbors’ dog when the neighbors [strike]fled[/strike] moved out. The neighbors had abused the dog horribly, and it took a while for the poor thing to learn how to -walk-, let alone run and play (it was almost heartbreaking to see her learn that playing with humans was actually acceptable), but she’s been succesfully socialized and given to a good home. Last summer she ran her first 3k, and we’ve been informed that she absolutely loves to run now.
My 8-month-old Beagle mix isn’t really a used dog, as she was only 3 months old when I adopted her, but now I feel the need to share her “need to go out” signal: she used to simply go to the patio door (which is in the dining room) and sit and whine, but in the past couple of months she has started doing “laps” around the dining room table to catch my attention when I’m on the couch. When she gets around to where she can see me, she’ll stare at me until she has to turn her head. Sometimes she’ll even break the “lap” at that point and walk over to me, stand immediately in front of me for a second, then continue with her circles around the table. The looks I get from her just crack me up. My SO and I have started referring to this behavior as “sharking.” Lucky for us, though, she doesn’t pee on the floor if we ignore her for a few laps: sometimes she’ll just give up and take a nap, but usually the looks and the whining just become more and more insistent until someone finally gets up and takes her out.
