Skeeter's Story


We purchased Skeeter more or less on an impulse from a backyard breeder as a dog for our daughter, Emilie. She had recently lost her cat and we wanted to give her a dog as a surprise. She picked ESS's out of a book of dogs (we'd given her guidelines for the breeds she could and could not have) and so, with no experience or real knowledge of the breed, we started combing the L.A. Times for puppies. We knew we wanted a liver and white female and when we found one, we all loaded into the car, drove to the breeder and bought the only female he had. No written contract, no breeding restrictions. To top it off, before we left, the Skeets took off and hid behind some bushes. Also, the breeder had the pups in a pen in the front yard and we never even asked to see the parents and he never volunteered.

After a couple of weeks I got copies of her parents' pedigrees in the mail, as promised along with the stuff to register her and get her papers. I sent him a note and a picture of Skeeter. Never heard from him again.

Initially she seemed to fit into the family okay. She started sleeping in Emilie's bed (cried when she was crated, so we let her out). But she also urinated everytime she saw my husband Curt and ran away from the mailman, the next door neighbor, and the Arrowhead delivery man.

Curt took her through obedience training and she did okay. She really wanted to spend time with our Dobe, Freya, and when we let them out to play together, no matter how many times the Dobe would put her down, she'd be back at her again. We found this amusing.

When kids came over to play, she liked to play with them. Everyone enjoyed running around the yard and having her chase them and laughed when she jumped up and nipped them in the butt.

Time passed and as she got older, we noticed that she and Freya seemed to be getting into spats more and more. Other than telling them to "stop it" we didn't really take any action.

One thing that we started to notice was a problem was that when Emilie was old enough to take dog training classes, she took Skeeter back through class with the trainer we had used before so she would learn dog training. At this class, Skeeter was referred to as "that cocker" and my daughter as "you, girl with the cocker." This was endlessly frustrating because there was another girl in the class who actually had a cocker, so Emilie was constantly confused about who the instructor was talking about. This issue seemed far more important to the instructor than the fact that Skeeter had started lunging and barking at all of the other dogs in the class.

This was okay, though and the first hint that we had that Skeeter might have an aggression problem was when she tried to bite one of my best friends when he and his wife were visiting. Hmmm. Maybe something is wrong here.

But when we really woke up was when Skeeter attacked Freya and tore her ear up so badly that she had to get stitches. When was that? Six months after Skeeter went after my friend.

Okay, SO EXACTLY HOW DUMB ARE WE????????? DO WE REALLY DRIVE A TURNIP TRUCK????? WERE WE BORN LAST NIGHT?????? HAD WE NEVER READ A SINGLE BOOK ON DOG TRAINING????

The truth is that none of these things is true. Our Dobe is an angel. I own more dog training books than diet books :-)! My husband and I both have more than one postgraduate degree and our daughter is in GATE. Facing this issue took something different than intelligence, knowledge, or even some experience. Facing this issue involved confronting the DENIAL. I'd never owned an aggressive dog and I didn't intend to start now!!!

Excuses, excuses excuses. I had a million of them for her behavior. Now, I have none. Skeeter is an aggressive dog. Doesn't matter to me right now what kind (fear aggressive, dominance aggressive, bad temperament). The bottom line is that Skeeter is an aggressive dog.

She's a lot of other things, too. She's cuddly and snuggly. Kids can dress her in baby clothes and lay across her. She is a natural tracker and (when not distracted) an awesome obedience dog. She is very comical and likes to "talk" about everything. She is a totally velcro companion. She has an irrepressible joie de vivre.

And so we have chosen (against some advice and in accordance with other advice) to rehabilitate her. Will we succeed? I don't know. We hope to, but I also know that the day may come when we have to put her down. Her story isn't finished yet, only time will tell...


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