Vacilando
08-27-2010, 02:12 AM
I originally wrote this as an ad for fostering/adoption, but it came across as more of a plea for help, so I moved it to this forum.
Here's the summary: Landlord's furious with Sam. Sam's gotta go. But due to Sam's behavior problems we're not sure what to do, and if anyone would take him.
Whole story:
Our Maltese, Sam, has had a hard life. He was a rescue off the street by his previous owners. They took him in and kept good care of him along with a mini-pin, but when they went back to New Zealand they could only afford the import/quarantine ordeal for one of them. Due to Sam's propensity for chasing birds, and the high penalty for dogs that catch the New Zealand protected birds, they decided to leave Sam with myself. (that was their story at least. I have a feeling they whitewashed over some of Sam's behavioral problems)
It was a hard adjustment for Sam (I made some posts on here about it a couple years back while it was going on), but he came a long way and we were finally starting to get along nicely when we had an emergency situation come up (one of my neighbors had a mental breakdown, which led to some very bizarre and scary incidents between her and my girlfriend and myself). The police and landlord refused to do anything about it, so we opted to move out.
We only had a few days to find a new place to live. We lucked out and found a great apartment. All the wheels were in motion to move in there, but when the landlord found out about Sam he made an edit to the lease agreement (we hadn't signed it yet) barring animals.
Rather than going back to living next to the person in need of serious mental help (she'd made threats of physical violence and other crazy stuff), I decided to sign the contract.
We found Sam a new home with a Korean college student. She took great care of Sam and we visited him from time to time and even (quietly) dog-sat him a couple times. A year went by and everything was peachy.
Then Sam's new mom had her own ugly incident. She was assaulted on the street nearby her home by a random drunk stranger. She spent some time in the hospital and needless to say, her family had to get out of the neighborhood as fast as possible as well. We agreed to take care of Sam temporarily while they got everything settled, but a few months have gone by and she hasn't taken him back yet.
And our landlord is furious. No matter how unreasonable his complaints are (says our little Maltese is going to destroy the apartment), it is part of our contract not to keep dogs or cats, so we are completely in the wrong. We've had other problems with this guy as well. He's not one to be bargained with over anything and will fight us tooth and nail about anything that needs to be done maintenance-wise to the apartment. Rather than talking to me about it, he's called my company and yelled at my boss over it. I tried to explain that having the dog that barks when he hears people outside makes up for the broken security light that means my wife returns home late at night to a pitch black entryway, but the company just wants to get him to stop calling them.
As angry as I am with the landlord, and as heartbroken as my girlfriend (now my wife) and I are about it (we've grown a lot closer to Sam in the past few months), there's little we can do.
I just got laid off from my job, but I have part time work lined up through our wedding ceremony in October and had already made arrangements with my company to let us stay here until that point. At that point we're moving to a new place, possibly to a new country. We plan on taking Sam with us wherever we go. But for now there's not much we can do.
Sam has lived with another small dog in the past and he seems to get along okay with female dogs he runs into on the street. He's fairly quiet, except when there's new people around. He is NOT a good dog to have around children (we suspect some kids may have abused him when he was living on the street) and doesn't trust strangers. Basically, he's great as long as people don't pay attention to him.
Around the house he's a lovely lapdog, content to sit and watch TV with you, but the occasional dominance issue rears it's ugly head sometimes (for example, growling if he's in your lap and you need to get up before he's good and ready), so any potential caretakers would need to be experienced with dogs.
Oh, he's a great watch dog, even for his small size. Any strange noises outside will have him barking, but just for a short time. His bark is surprisingly loud, but he keeps it in check unless unknown people come into the house (if they just come in and totally ignore him, he'll warm up to them soon enough).
He does have a history of biting though. Once was my wife that was ignoring his obvious irritation at being picked up and she did it anyway (trying to play with him when he wasn't in the mood) and the other was her brother who was probably doing something similar (I wasn't here for it). He's snapped at people (including myself) a few other times without actually biting.
We do have one of those citronella spray collars that works wonders with him if the barking is too much (it very well might be at first. When I got him he barked quite a bit out of nervousness. Stopped immediately with the collar).
We are very attached to this grumpy little guy, but he is a challenge to take care of. That's what has me worried about him. I worry about him getting put out on the street again if the right person doesn't take care of him or if he snaps at someone.
I brought up euthanasia with my wife tonight. I told her I'd rather put him to sleep than have him end up on the street, or being beaten again.
Other options that are on the table:
Get the college girl to take care of him again (my wife doesn't totally trust her, as we figured out she was feeding Sam food that had expired several years ago)
Find someone to foster or adopt. Not easy given Sam's personality.
Put Sam in obedience training until we move a couple months later. Not easy considering I just lost my job and we have a wedding ceremony coming up.
It's definitely been an emotional roller coaster with Sam. I love dogs and have grown up round them and I worry that my wife will be totally opposed to getting another one down the road after the emotional ride Sam has taken us on.
If anyone has any thoughts or advice about what we can do we'd greatly appreciate it.
Here's the summary: Landlord's furious with Sam. Sam's gotta go. But due to Sam's behavior problems we're not sure what to do, and if anyone would take him.
Whole story:
Our Maltese, Sam, has had a hard life. He was a rescue off the street by his previous owners. They took him in and kept good care of him along with a mini-pin, but when they went back to New Zealand they could only afford the import/quarantine ordeal for one of them. Due to Sam's propensity for chasing birds, and the high penalty for dogs that catch the New Zealand protected birds, they decided to leave Sam with myself. (that was their story at least. I have a feeling they whitewashed over some of Sam's behavioral problems)
It was a hard adjustment for Sam (I made some posts on here about it a couple years back while it was going on), but he came a long way and we were finally starting to get along nicely when we had an emergency situation come up (one of my neighbors had a mental breakdown, which led to some very bizarre and scary incidents between her and my girlfriend and myself). The police and landlord refused to do anything about it, so we opted to move out.
We only had a few days to find a new place to live. We lucked out and found a great apartment. All the wheels were in motion to move in there, but when the landlord found out about Sam he made an edit to the lease agreement (we hadn't signed it yet) barring animals.
Rather than going back to living next to the person in need of serious mental help (she'd made threats of physical violence and other crazy stuff), I decided to sign the contract.
We found Sam a new home with a Korean college student. She took great care of Sam and we visited him from time to time and even (quietly) dog-sat him a couple times. A year went by and everything was peachy.
Then Sam's new mom had her own ugly incident. She was assaulted on the street nearby her home by a random drunk stranger. She spent some time in the hospital and needless to say, her family had to get out of the neighborhood as fast as possible as well. We agreed to take care of Sam temporarily while they got everything settled, but a few months have gone by and she hasn't taken him back yet.
And our landlord is furious. No matter how unreasonable his complaints are (says our little Maltese is going to destroy the apartment), it is part of our contract not to keep dogs or cats, so we are completely in the wrong. We've had other problems with this guy as well. He's not one to be bargained with over anything and will fight us tooth and nail about anything that needs to be done maintenance-wise to the apartment. Rather than talking to me about it, he's called my company and yelled at my boss over it. I tried to explain that having the dog that barks when he hears people outside makes up for the broken security light that means my wife returns home late at night to a pitch black entryway, but the company just wants to get him to stop calling them.
As angry as I am with the landlord, and as heartbroken as my girlfriend (now my wife) and I are about it (we've grown a lot closer to Sam in the past few months), there's little we can do.
I just got laid off from my job, but I have part time work lined up through our wedding ceremony in October and had already made arrangements with my company to let us stay here until that point. At that point we're moving to a new place, possibly to a new country. We plan on taking Sam with us wherever we go. But for now there's not much we can do.
Sam has lived with another small dog in the past and he seems to get along okay with female dogs he runs into on the street. He's fairly quiet, except when there's new people around. He is NOT a good dog to have around children (we suspect some kids may have abused him when he was living on the street) and doesn't trust strangers. Basically, he's great as long as people don't pay attention to him.
Around the house he's a lovely lapdog, content to sit and watch TV with you, but the occasional dominance issue rears it's ugly head sometimes (for example, growling if he's in your lap and you need to get up before he's good and ready), so any potential caretakers would need to be experienced with dogs.
Oh, he's a great watch dog, even for his small size. Any strange noises outside will have him barking, but just for a short time. His bark is surprisingly loud, but he keeps it in check unless unknown people come into the house (if they just come in and totally ignore him, he'll warm up to them soon enough).
He does have a history of biting though. Once was my wife that was ignoring his obvious irritation at being picked up and she did it anyway (trying to play with him when he wasn't in the mood) and the other was her brother who was probably doing something similar (I wasn't here for it). He's snapped at people (including myself) a few other times without actually biting.
We do have one of those citronella spray collars that works wonders with him if the barking is too much (it very well might be at first. When I got him he barked quite a bit out of nervousness. Stopped immediately with the collar).
We are very attached to this grumpy little guy, but he is a challenge to take care of. That's what has me worried about him. I worry about him getting put out on the street again if the right person doesn't take care of him or if he snaps at someone.
I brought up euthanasia with my wife tonight. I told her I'd rather put him to sleep than have him end up on the street, or being beaten again.
Other options that are on the table:
Get the college girl to take care of him again (my wife doesn't totally trust her, as we figured out she was feeding Sam food that had expired several years ago)
Find someone to foster or adopt. Not easy given Sam's personality.
Put Sam in obedience training until we move a couple months later. Not easy considering I just lost my job and we have a wedding ceremony coming up.
It's definitely been an emotional roller coaster with Sam. I love dogs and have grown up round them and I worry that my wife will be totally opposed to getting another one down the road after the emotional ride Sam has taken us on.
If anyone has any thoughts or advice about what we can do we'd greatly appreciate it.